Rapunzel: the war with the Fomorians
by Sammael29
Summary: When the teenage Saxon Rapunzel accidentally discovers the gateway to a kingdom of evil sea-giants, she must work with her mischievous brother, a fierce Scot warrior, and a handsome prince with a dragon to stop an evil noblewoman from stealing the throne. A Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons story. Pairings are Jarida and Hiccunzel.
1. Chapter 1

Rapunzel: the war with the Fomorians

 **Hello everyone. This is an idea I first had after reading PrincessLuka Vocalzal's story Sleeping Viking and the Snow Wings(for those of you who don't know, it's a HTTYD/Frozen crossover, based on the plot of the 2014 film Maleficent). When Luka organized a poll to decide which film the plot of her next story should be based on, the options included Jack the Giant Slayer. I voted for this one, since it was the one I liked the sound of most, and then thought "why don't I give it a try myself?" So, here it is, my own unique Big Four adaptation of JTGS, with Hiccunzel as the main couple(though not in the roles you might imagine)….**

Chapter 1: The tale begins

When they first came to the island, it was a dismal place, twelve days north of Hopeless, a few degrees south of Freezing to Death, located solidly on the Meridian of Misery.

Bjërck.

That was its original name in the Nordic tongue. But after generations of enduring the pests native to the island, the settlers decided to change its name to "Berk". It wasn't that the land was barren; they had good fishing grounds, hunting grounds, and a charming view of the sunsets.

No, the real problem with Berk was the pests. Most islands have small, commonplace pests, like mice and mosquitoes. But Berk had pests of an exotic and terrifying variety.

Dragons!

Great, flying, fire-breathing dragons. They gathered here in greater numbers than any known to man, and as soon as the settlers arrived, they brought with them new and interesting meats for the dragons to taste in their sheep, goats, chickens and cattle.

Now, if you're living year-round on an island infested with dragons, most people would want to leave. But not these settlers. They were Vikings, warriors by nature, and afraid of pretty much nothing. And they had strong stubbornness issues.

So at first, the Vikings dealt with the dragons the same way they had dealt with anything that annoyed them: by fighting them. But fists and axes only did so much good against creatures with powerful wings, skin like iron and dangerous breath, so eventually one curious Viking thought that perhaps they were going about this the wrong way. Instead of fighting the dragons, they should try to make peace with them.

A mad suggestion, perhaps, but a successful one. Within a short time, dragons and Vikings became close neighbours, even friends. A few choice Vikings then hit upon the idea of training the dragons like other animals, and soon every Viking on Berk was riding dragons into battle. Their power and political status increased greatly, their small tribe widened to accept other branches, their chiefdom grew into a kingdom, and soon, from being a disbanded battle ground between men and mythical creatures, Berk had grown into a massive state, accepting not only Vikings from other tribes(the Berserkers, the Outcasts, the Lava-Louts, and the Uglithugs to name just a few), but also people from completely different cultures- Saxons from Germany, Slavs from Russia, Celts from Scotland and Ireland, and even Huns from Central Asia, all of whom brought their own cultural skills to the kingdom's community.

With all those different cultures mixing together, those aspects most commonly exchanged were their ancient legends of the past. But the most common legend in all of Berk was not, surprisingly, a Viking one, but a Celtic one, the tale of the Fomorians. It was commonly used by parents to scare their naughty children into good behaviour, but legends are lessons; they ring with truth. It's just that no-one knew how much truth.

No-one, that is, until the birth of the girl around whom this tale revolves. She started off a farm-girl, but became a warrior. And her name was Rapunzel.

Rapunzel and her twin brother Jack were born to a very curious mixed family. Their mother was a Celt from Inverness, but their father was a Saxon, so their parents had both raised them with tales of the Saxon gods and the Celtic ones, the Tuatha de Dannan(pronounced "Tootha Day Donnon"). The kids didn't mind, they were equally willing to listen to one side as the other. They'd lived a peaceful and contented life on a small farm only a short distance away from the citadel of Berk, up until their mother was killed in a wolf attack when they were just five. Now it was just them living in the little thatched hut, along with their beloved farm animals, a chameleon from Morocco, a single dragon and their loving father, Nicholas.

To look at them, you wouldn't believe that Jack and Rapunzel were siblings- you wouldn't even believe they were related. Where Jack was skinny and pale-skinned, Rapunzel was slender, fair-skinned and freckled. Jack's eyes were a pure, icy blue, Rapunzel's eyes were large and bright green. Jack's hair was short, unkempt and white, but Rapunzel's hair was blonde-no, more than blonde, golden- and so long it reached the ground and trailed behind her like a snake when left unbraided. And their physical differences extended beyond appearances.

Jack and Rapunzel were born with magic. One time when the two children had been out playing in the forest, Rapunzel tripped and grazed her knee on a branch. To try and ease the pain, their mother had started singing a little Gaelic song which her daughter had joined in with, only stopping upon noticing that her hair was beginning to glow like daylight along the ground. In shock, she scooped all her hair up and onto her knees, then continued singing to make her hair glow more. And the more she sang, the more her hair glowed, and the less painful her grazed knee felt: at last, she removed her hair to discover that the graze in it had completely disappeared, as though she had never cut it in the first place. From that point on, she realized that her hair had magic healing powers, which could only be triggered by singing. It was in fact her hair which had earned her name; when she was born, her father told her that her golden hair spread out onto the pillow beneath her head like a flower's petals, more specifically, like the petals of a Rapunzel flower.

Jack, in contrast, had been born with the ability to fly and create ice and snow. When he was four years old, he accidentally fell off a small cliff in the forest while hunting for hedgehogs. But instead of hitting the ground, he felt himself stop in mid-air and removed his hands from his eyes to find he was floating a few feet above the ground, almost like the wind had formed a cushion to support his weight. He then found that he could direct the course of the wind just with a little concentration, and then gently pushed himself through the air and back towards the house. Another time, he met a brown bear by the river plunging its paws in the water to try and grab fish. He imitated it, only for the water to suddenly freeze solid around his fingers. After he struggled to pull his hand free, he then replicated the feat on the trunk of a nearby tree, and laughed with joy upon seeing frost grow in fern patterns across the bark. In the same way as Rapunzel, his powers were the reason for his name: his hands were so cold(yet not unpleasantly so) and his hair so white that he looked very similar to Jokul Frosti, the Viking winter spirit, better known by his Anglicized name, Jack Frost.

But the night our story begins, the now eight-year old Jack and Rapunzel were not playing with their magic. Instead, they sat upon the bed at night, with rain falling on the roofing and thunder cracking outside, reading through one of the books their mother used to read to them, a book of Celtic legends. Jack wore a rustic pair of brown trousers and a similar shirt. Rapunzel wore a little lavender nighty, and they held the book between them as Pascal, the little green chameleon, perched on Rapunzel's shoulder with his brown eyes wide with awe.

" _Fei, fie, foa, fumh,_ " the two children read aloud the Gaelic oaths their mother Aoife had taught them.

" _Ask not from whence the wolf-winds come,_

 _Ask not why the sea-birds cry,_

 _Nor where the dragons never fly._

 _Run from the sea when waves are red,_

 _For monsters live in Magh Tuiredh._ "

A clap of thunder illuminated an imposing figure standing in the doorway, making Rapunzel shriek in shock and withdraw beneath the bedclothes. But the figure who stood there was not a monster, but simply their father, Nicholas. Born in the north, Nicholas had a massive beard that flowed down his chest like a waterfall of snow, yet regardless of this, he was in fact quite a young man, only in his early forties. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes clear blue, and his build tall and muscular, framed by a red coat lined with black bison fur with the sleeves rolled back to display his impressive arms.

"Not asleep yet, children?" Nicholas chuckled in his deep German accent, his hands wet with straw from the stables.

"Sorry, father," Rapunzel replied, no longer as timid as she slid upwards out from under the sheets. "The Fomorians woke us."

"Ah, it is only a thunderstorm, Rapunzel," North smiled gently at his daughter.

"Well, mother used to say the Fomorians made the thunder," Jack pointed out, holding up the small book in one hand.

"Ah, you've been reading her old books, have you?"

"Yes," Jack nodded. "We found it among the rest of her old things. Will you finish reading it for us?"

Nicholas had a downright jolly expression as he ambled over to climb onto the bed between them, allowing Pascal a place on his shoulder. "All right, then. What point are we at?"

"It was the druids!" Rapunzel brightly squeaked. "The Celtic druids were attempting to find the kingdom of their gods, so they created-"

" _Ja,_ magic flowers, I remember this," Nicholas held open the book on an intricate image of swirl patterns, in the shape of a tall green stem leading into the clouds. He continued to read aloud the rest of the poem.

" _In an attempt to discover the kingdom of the Tuatha, a group of Celtic druids asked for the blessing of Lugh, the god of light. And in response, he instructed them on how to enchant the seeds of a golden daffodil, which they then placed in a water-filled field._ _No sooner had the seeds been planted, than they grew into numerous gigantic flowers with such tall stalks that they reached into the clouds above the druid's heads. The druids climbed up the stalk of the flower, determined to reach the Tuatha, but they ran into a horror that lay between the kingdoms of gods and men."_

He stopped on a page with the detailed image of a gigantic man with a bear's head raising an axe over the head of a terrified man in druidical clothes. The beast was black, scarred, and monstrous.

" _This land was Magh Tuiredh, the home of the Fomorians. The Fomorians were a tribe of bloodthirsty sea-giants, with the bodies of men and the heads of animals. Centuries ago, when Magh Tuiredh still lay beneath the sea, the Fomorians battled with the Tuatha, but the gods ultimately won the battle, and to ensure the Fomorians could never threaten anyone again, they lifted Magh Tuiredh out of the ocean and fixed it in the sky, separating the Fomorians from the water in which they were strongest._ "

Rapunzel shivered in her blankets. She had liked this part of the story the most, admiring the twisted architecture of the huge stone mass being raised out of the ocean by the Tuatha, water still running over the sides along with fish, while the Fomorians watched in fear and anger as their enemies banished them from the world of men.

" _But now that the druids had created a bridge between the sky and the earth, the Fomorians could escape from their prison. Killing the druids, they descended down the flowers and returned to the human world, where they returned to a life of chaos and brutality. The Fomorians were evil in many ways. They stole gold from villages and cities and hoarded it to themselves. But their worst trait by far was their appetites…_ "

 _"_ _For the Fomorians were carnivores with a passionate love of eating human flesh._ "

"That is completely disgusting," grimaced Prince Hiccup as he sat up in bed listening to the story.

Prince Hiccup was the future heir to the throne of Berk, and the third Viking prince of his name. His name was a shameful one, admittedly, but there were worse names. When Hiccup had been born to his mother Valka and his father Stoick, he hadn't been what most Viking fathers wanted from their sons. He was a small boy with unkempt auburn hair that was browner than either of his parents, sharp forest green eyes, and his muscles were too small to lift an axe. But his ancestors of the same name had proved to be the most persistent of Vikings even against far stronger opponents, so he had been named Hikke Forfaerdelige Kuller(Hiccup Horrendous Haddock) almost as an ironic display of confidence in the heroic reputation he would have to live up to.

Beside him on the bed sat Queen Valka. A tall, slender women in her early 40's, Valka had a keen pair of emerald eyes like her son and her husband, a slender, narrow nose, and long red-auburn hair done up in two loose braids behind her head. She was currently dressed in long royal robes of grape red with blue and yellow trim, and atop her head she wore a small silver crown shaped like beating dragon wings. Also on the bed sat Toothless, Prince Hiccup's own dragon. A cat-sized black dragon with round jaws like an alligator, wide viridian eyes and a pair of piscine fins attached to his long, powerful tail, Toothless wore a red leather cuirass over his torso with two large plates removed to make room for his wings: appropriate armour for a royal dragon. Currently he was reading over Hiccup's shoulder with an open mouth, exposing his impressive white teeth(being a Night Fury, Toothless could retract these teeth into his gums to avoid breaking them by biting something harder than dragon skin, hence his name).

"Oh, sorry, Hiccup," Valka apologized, her warm voice lilting with her gracious Danish accent. "Is it too scary for you?"

"No, the Fomorians aren't scary," Hiccup replied, with that admirable trait of Viking stubbornness.

"Not even their leader, a witch-giantess with the legs of an octopus who rode upon a colossal moray eel with two heads?" Valka asked teasingly. "Or their general, Mor'du the dreaded Demon bear?"

Hiccup smiled innocently. "It's only a story, mother. Please keep reading."

"Oh, it's more than a story, my son," Valka chuckled softly, before continuing reading.

" _In order to combat the Fomorians, King Bork the Bold, a Viking ruler, made peace with the Celts and introduced them to his own troll wizards. Combining Celtic magic with arcane troll power, the two sides managed to capture and kill a Fomorian and empty all the blood from its body. And from that blood, they magically forged a great iron crown, bright red and unbending, like Viking spirits. And so they named the crown Blodfed, Bold Blood, a weapon which would help them defeat the Fomorians._ "

"This is my favourite part of the story," Rapunzel whispered to her brother.

Nicholas continued to read aloud,

 _"_ _Whoever wore that crown upon their heads could force the Fomorians to obey whatever order they might give. Naturally, King Bork took up the crown, and he stopped the Fomorians from rampaging and killing. He then sent them back up the giant flowers and into the sky, returning to Magh Tuiredh yet again. As soon as the last giant had disappeared into the clouds, King Bork commanded his soldiers to cut the flowers down, so that the Fomorians might find no way down again._

 _As soon as the damage sustained by the Fomorians had been repaired, King Bork then found the remaining magic seeds and took them with him to ensure that no evil minds could find the seeds and use them to start another war between giants and men. And such was the Celts' respect for the great king that they not only allowed him to keep the seeds, along with Blodfed, but they also placed both crown and seeds inside his tomb to ensure no-one could ever steal them again. And so great was this feat of King Bork's that as time went on, eventually history turned to legend, and the Fomorians were never heard of again._ "

Nicholas closed the book gently, while his children looked on in awe.

"Father, what will we do if the Fomorians come back?" Rapunzel asked timidly.

"They're not coming back, Rapunzel," Nicholas comforted his daughter by patting her shoulder.

"But suppose they do?" she persisted.

Nicholas sighed and shook his head gently. "Well, I suppose King Stoick's Dragon Guard will need to take axes to their legs to rid them of the unfair height advantage."

"Cool! Can I join the Dragon Guard, father?" Jack pleaded, pulling one of his father's large tattooed arms.

"Can I, too?" Rapunzel was almost bouncing in her eagerness.

Nicholas laughed gently. "I don't doubt that you're both brave enough to join the Dragon Guard, children. But they're very selective in the Guard. They only accept those who are both noble and pure-blooded Vikings or Celts. There's no place among them for half-Saxon peasants like us."

Rapunzel visibly pouted at this. Her father sighed yet again at his daughter's expression.

"It's only a story, Rapunzel," he said. "The Fomorians aren't real."

"But King Bork was real, wasn't he?" Hiccup persisted, as his mother got up from his bed with her book.

"Indeed he was, Hiccup." Valka agreed. "And in many ways, he still is, for he lives on his descendants. Which include you."

"I've been to visit his tomb," Hiccup added, slightly uncomfortable with revealing this information.

Valka's eyebrows raised. "You mean you've been entering the royal catacombs? Clearly you've been starting your own little adventures."

Hiccup's eyes widened in concern. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Of course not," Valka smiled warmly. "I want you to have adventures, my son."

"But why?" the small prince asked.

"Because if you have adventures, you'll get to learn about the people you will one day rule over. You'll learn how their community works, and how neither the king nor the people should have complete control over the other. For one day you will be the strongest king of all. You have the heart of a chief and the spirit of a dragon. That is how you will make the world a better place, my son."

Hiccup smiled at his mother's praise.

"Now, off to sleep you go," Valka gently spoke. Hiccup wriggled down into the bed, while Toothless chirped and folded his wings over his own body.

"Good night, Hiccup," Valka whispered to her son as she placed a kiss upon his brow. She then turned and gently exited his bedchamber, rightly daubed with wooden carvings and bright tapestries.

Back in Rapunzel's family's cottage, Nicholas gently extinguished one of the small candles by his children's bedside. He moved over to another one, but Rapunzel reached out in gentle protest.

"No, please leave that one for us, father," she said nervously.

Nicholas agreed to his daughter's request. "Alright, get some sleep now, Rapunzel," he soothed. "We have to get up before daybreak tomorrow if we're to herd the caribou."

He got up and was about to leave to his own room when he heard a call from his little daughter.

"Father, how do you know the Fomorians aren't real?" she asked.

For a few moments, her father was silent, the lightning illuminating his serious face.

"To tell you the truth, Rapunzel, I'm not sure," he replied. "Some of us used to think dragons and trolls weren't real too, remember? Perhaps some day, you and Jack might find that out for yourselves."

And with that said, the huge white-bearded farmer exited their bedroom. As soon as they were sure he was gone, Rapunzel quickly turned to nudge Jack awake. They then slipped the book out from under their pillows and read aloud the rest of the story.

" _But always our people must be on the lookout, for the Fomorians look down in hatred upon the lands of their enemy. For though they were defeated once, they have sworn vengeance upon those smaller ones who humiliated them. And they plan to return to the human world, where they shall devour those of the lineage of King Bork and finally win the battle they have fought since ancient times._ "

And far above, in the midst of the hiss of rain and the snarl of lightning, a horrific roar of bestial anger echoed down from among the clouds. Yes, Jack and Rapunzel would one day find the Fomorians themselves…

 **So there you are! The first chapter in what I hope to be a complete and impressive adaptation of JTGS featuring the Big Four! Yes, Jack will be playing an original character, because you just can't have a Big Four story without every member of the Four. In the second chapter, the Four will be all grown-up, and we will get to meet the Lord Roderick of this story, as well as the charming Merida.**

 **Hiccup: Still, though… a magic crown which controls an unstoppable army? Where have we heard that before?**

 **Me: Not now, Hiccup. Anyway, hope you like this idea! If you like the story, please write and review. If you don't like it, DON'T write or review, or even read, because the last person who sent a negative review made me quite annoyed.**

 **P.S. to Princess Luka Vocalzal- hope you like what I'm doing with this story. If there are a few character changes, I'm sorry about not updating the cast list before, but I had another story to finish beforehand. Anyway, please review if you like this.**

 **Bye for now,**

 **Sammael29**


	2. Chapter 2

Rapunzel chapter 2

Gifts from a Witch

10 years later, much had changed for young Rapunzel and Jack. An outbreak of plague had robbed the children of their father, leaving them with their animals, their fields overlooking the surrounding wood, and their uncle Milde to take care of them. Milde was a crotchety, cantankerous old Saxon, and the siblings loved him far less than Nicholas, but he knew the ways of farming far better than most of the Vikings on Berk, and he was able to hold the family together. They had, in addition, been forced to sell the family dragon, a burly Gronckle called Ulf, since Milde had an almost allergic dislike of dragons and was one of the few people who thought that the kingdom of Berk should never have befriended the dragons(regardless of the fact that Berk would never have become a kingdom in the first place if they hadn't).

But most of all, Rapunzel and Jack themselves had changed. Jack had become a tall and athletic teen, due to years of practice running and climbing through the forests to get away from Milde when the old man's abrasive personality became too much for him to stand. Besides having impressive speed at his disposal, even without his magic wind-controlling powers(magic was something else Milde didn't like), Jack had developed an air of roguish handsomeness. His unkempt white hair had become dense and glossy, his first chin hair had come in(just as pure white as the rest of his hair), and he had very toned muscles from constant work applied to the hard Berk turf. He still hadn't entirely given up on his dream of becoming one of the Dragon Guard, and had taken to practice fighting with his shepherd's crook. It wasn't an axe or a longsword, but it was strong enough to lift a stray fox off the ground and throw it back into the forest, so it was a suitable weapon for him.

Rapunzel had become even more lively and energetic. Her hair was now 70 feet long, since she couldn't cut it without losing her healing skills. In order to prevent people from treading on it, she wore it in a braid, but even that braid reached all the way down to her shins. While still petite, Rapunzel had gained impressive neck muscles from having to carry the weight of all that hair, and her freckled skin had developed a soft tan from working outdoors. In addition, she had learnt that one of their seemingly harmless household items was in fact a useful weapon after she ran across a handful of violent weasels attacking the chickens and killed one of them with a quick sweep of an iron skillet. Yes, although Rapunzel had many artistic interests, like flower-arranging, cakes and dress-making, she still had a dangerous streak. She just needed the opportunity to start using it.

And that opportunity came one early morning, when 18-year old Rapunzel crept into her brother's bedroom to find him lying on his side, smiling wistfully, as if imagining a pair of sweet pink lips kissing his pale own. He was dressed in his brown shirt(slightly unbuttoned) and his hair was all over the pillows.

Rapunzel gently shook her brother by one shoulder. "Psst, Jack," she whispered. "Jack. Wake up."

"Go back to sleep, Rapunzel," Jack groaned, not opening his eyes.

"I can't," Rapunzel playfully whined. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play before uncle Mildew wakes up!"

Yes, Rapunzel had nicknamed her uncle Mildew. Hardly a nice nickname, but it summed up his character perfectly. He was damp, unpleasant and his body odour was disgusting(made worse by the fact that he used to bunk down with the sheep in the barn on nights when he couldn't be bothered to go to bed; indeed, there was a reason one of their largest rams was called Fungus).

Jack opened his sharp blue eyes and got up out of bed. "Well, we'd better get started then."

Quickly getting changed into his blue hooded tunic, Jack picked his crook up and ran outside. Rapunzel quickly discarded her pink nightie and replaced it with a full purple dress with pink ribboning. She eagerly charged after her brother, and the pair got to work making the farm look presentable and making a game out of it.

Jack and Rapunzel liked their job at the farm, really, with the animals and their parents' old books, but after years of doing the same routine, it got samey. Although they had been told multiple times that they wouldn't be allowed into the Dragon Guard, they still dreamt of going on great adventures with the brave warriors of Berk, righting wrongs and defeating evil.

When would that life begin?

In fact, their adventure began as soon as Uncle Mildew came hobbling across the field pulling Sven the caribou by the collar. "Jack! Rapunzel! There y'are! I was wondering where y'd got to! Wandering outside the house without asking my leave!"

Mildew was a vivid contrast to his brother Nicholas in many ways. Where Nicholas was tall and burly, Mildew was short and skinny. Mildew wore a ridiculously large unkempt grey moustache under his large curved nose and over his crooked teeth, in contrast to his brother's huge, yet finely-kept white beard. And whereas North was jolly and bright and colourful, Mildew was grumpy and nit-picky and dressed in dull colours to match his personality: grey woollen arm-bands, brown trousers that had seen better days and a tunic the colour of a bruised swede. Even his hazel eyes looked like algae growing in muddy water.

Sven the caribou visibly gagged and snorted angrily from within his grip. A large tan stag with impressive 14-pointed antlers, white fur around his neck and hooves, and deep brown eyes, Sven had first come to Rapunzel's family when they bought him from a Norwegian ice-harvester. Having originally trained an entire team of reindeer to pull a sled through the icy hills, Nicholas soon taught his children to form a friendship with the cute, goofy Sven. He'd been one of their few childhood friends. And now they were going to have to sell him along with the cart he was pulling.

As Rapunzel and Jack eased Sven's temper by taking him off Uncle Mildew, the old Saxon followed them a short distance along the country road leading to the castle.

"Oh, after y've sold the buck and his cart, make sure to come back and hack the ivy off the walls. If they grow any taller, we won't be able to leave the house." Their uncle groused at them.

"Yes, Uncle Mildew," Jack sighed, trying his best to tune out of this boring conversation.

"Oh, and Rapunzel?" Mildew called after her, his eyebrows furrowed in quiet frustration. "Don't you or your brother take either of your eyes off the cart."

20 minutes later, Jack and Rapunzel were slowly reaching the great castle of Berk. Sven grunted almost in an accusatory tone at his two masters- no, friends, as they were about to sell him to some unpleasant new owner, who for all he knew might turn out to be a greedy caribou-eating troll.

"Oh, don't look at us like that," Rapunzel chided the caribou gently. "You're our best friend, Sven, and if we had enough money, and a choice in the matter, we wouldn't want to sell you."

By this point they had now reached the massive stone bridge leading into the citadel of Berk, where they would soon make some new and exciting friends, and maybe some enemies.

Castle Berk was a massive stone fortress, nearly 14 times as tall as the beech forest outside Rapunzel's farm. The building was influenced by the great English palaces, but still retained a unique Viking apparel. Marking the boundaries of the great wooden drawbridge were two monolithic warriors, their bearded mouths gaping in snarls to display the huge torches lit within. Runic inscriptions spelled out the castle name above the two teenager's heads as they entered the city. Even the castle rooftops were thatched with straw over metal slates, and great draconic metal roof ornaments. Even the boats sailing around the moat were adorned with dragon-headed prows.

Within the crowded castle market, a wide mix of people were buying and selling with perfect enthusiasm. Slavonic traders with rich colourful clothes and equally-colourful wares; Egyptians carrying tasty fruits and lively baboons; even Trader Johann, a cheery dark-bearded man of mixed Hittite and Viking heritage, had turned up for this special day.

The downside was, now the siblings would need to work even harder to sell their cart and their caribou.

"Reindeer and cart!" Jack called, looking around for anyone interested. No response, as always. It felt unpleasantly like Jack was invisible to these people.

Rapunzel persisted for her brother's sake, however. "Reindeer and cart, for a very high price! We'll miss his company!"

And then they saw a tent. A small rawhide pavilion, full almost to the brim, with a large wooden bear-head attached to the roof, scarred horrifically down one side of the face and with blood drips stylized on its jaws. Only one bear Rapunzel had ever heard stories of had a face like that.

Tugging on Jack's sleeve, Rapunzel slid gently into the tent, trying to find a natural space for her to watch the show which was undoubtedly ensuing inside the tent. A small wooden stage was at the far end of the tent, with an offstage chorus chanting in Gaelic and beating drums. After a few moments of this, an old dwarf dressed in a yellow-and-blue tunic staggered on, small and red-faced with a short white beard, and looked at his audience with a dim grin and unfocused brown eyes. After a moment's laughter at this clearly drunken fool, he then changed expressions deftly; his eyes narrowed, his grin turned to a frown, and he began to pace the stage with surprising assertiveness for a man so small.

" _Fei, fie, foa, fumh_ ," he chanted.

" _Ask not from whence the wolf-winds come._

 _Ask not why the sea-birds cry,_

 _Nor where the dragons dare not fly._

 _Run from the sea when waves are red,_

 _For monsters live in Magh Tuiredh._ "

Rapunzel laughed. Her suspicions had proved correct: He was going to tell them the story of the Fomorians. Jack, equally excited, pulled his hood down to get a better view of the stage.

" _Now, please remove these faces dread,_ " the short old man(we'll call him Shorty for now) said.

" _Here comes King Bork with his crown, Blodfed!_ "

And on stage rushed another dwarf; she was clearly a woman, wearing a massive false beard and tacky gold armour. Her hair was dyed in two long grey braids, though she couldn't have been more than thirty-eight, and she had clear purple eyes and looked fairly sprightly- she was almost like a rabbit in human form.

"Hello, friends!" she called in a falsely deep voice. "I'm King Bork the Bold!"

"Hello, Bork!" the audience shouted back.

"So, who wants to see me defeat the Fomorians?"

"YES!" they cheered.

They were both on a role now. " _In Magh Tuiredh begins our tale, above the sky so blue and pale, a land reached by an unnatural tower, the stalk of a giant magic flower. And on the flesh of mankind feast the Fomorians, half-giant, half-beast._ "

And with a horrific roar, a normal-sized man(if you can call a 6'8'' hooligan clad in a cape of bison fur and wearing a wooden mask shaped like a one-eyed bear over his head normal) charged onstage, grabbed Shorty and lifted him off the ground, holding him up to his mouth.

But at this point, Rapunzel's attention was diverted from the stage as she turned her head and made out someone standing a few feet away from her and her brother. It was a boy around her age, wearing a long green cape with a hood to try and hide his face, but not to much avail. From what she could see of him, his hair was short, unkempt and auburn, with two small braids protruding from beneath the hood, he had a few freckles, much like her, his smile was a slightly goofy one and his eyes were clear and green.

And he was gorgeous.

For a few moments, Rapunzel took her eyes off the stage, watching the man quietly.

"What are you doing, Punzie?" Jack whispered, upon noticing his sister's sudden lack of interest in the play. Then he saw the new boy and abruptly shut up, nodding in quiet impression.

Then a Viking girl stumbled into the caped boy, then started looking him up in a way that set off alarm bells in Rapunzel's head. The girl was slender and willowy with ash-blonde hair done up in two braids of uneven length, blue eyes, a low neckline on her light yellow tunic and a seriously drunk expression.

Clearly the young man was just as uncomfortable with this attention, as he was trying to slip out of the woman's arms even as she slid them around him like an amorous snake.

"Hello, han'some," she crooned in what was clearly meant to be a sultry voice, but was instead clumsily slurred. "Wha'sh your name, hmmm?"

"I-I don't believe that's any of your concern," he protested awkwardly, his voice slightly nasal, while trying to squirm away. But instead of escaping her grip, he accidentally pushed his hand into her grip, a hand clad in a red-and-black leather gauntlet with intricate gold jewels interwoven into the seams.

"Oooh," the drunken girl drawled. "Pretty glove. Where'd you get it from?"

"Again, it's no concern of yours," he insisted with further anxiety, before finally managing to shove her off and try to disappear into the crowd.

"Jack," Rapunzel whispered, as she saw an angered look creep into the drunken girl's face. "I think she's going to do something she shouldn't. Let's stop her, quick."

Sure enough, as the hooded boy reached the tent entrance, the drunken girl cornered him and grabbed his arm, forcing him around to face her.

"Whash the matter?" she drawled, slightly more assertive this time. "Am I not pleashant company for you?"

Seeing the man starting to struggle more desperately now, Rapunzel ran over and shoved herself between the two of them.

"Hey, leave that poor boy alone!" she scolded.

And immediately received an angry slap across the face which knocked her over. Immediately she got back up, mentally regretting not bringing her frying pan with her this morning. Jack immediately ran over and shoved the Viking girl back away from his sister.

Rapunzel got to her feet and rubbed her cheek angrily. "I'll be honest, you were so drunk I didn't think you should be doing that."

The Viking girl suddenly looked visibly pale and moved backwards a few feet. Emboldened by this, Rapunzel continued, "Now, why don't we just let this boy go back home, and we never speak of this again, huh?"

The Viking girl had sunk to her knees at this point, her expression one of abject terror. "Forgive me, my lady," she whimpered, the slurring gone from her voice now. "I don't want to cause any trouble…"

"Well, that's a shame," Rapunzel growled. "Because I'm going to give you some."

But then she noticed the Viking girl was bowing, along with every person in the tent, their faces turned away in humility. This was far too formal a form of respect for two half-Saxon, half-Celtic teenagers, least of all two peasant teenagers. Then Rapunzel realised that the Viking girl's eyes weren't focused on her at all, but at a spot above her shoulder. She clicked on immediately.

"Let me guess, someone's behind me," she snarked, before turning around to face the person. As soon as she did, her jaw dropped.

The person everyone was bowing to was a woman seated on the back of a dragon. The dragon was a pure black Deadly Nadder, with a beaked white muzzle, two brown slit-pupiled eyes and a whip-like tail coated in spikes. Its rider was at least 5'8'', two inches taller than Rapunzel and just an inch shorter than Jack, yet little older than either of them. She wore a pair of dark teal trousers overshadowed by a short kilt of green, grey and red, along with a cape of thistle purple and metal-scale armour. Only her head was left bare, exposing a positive flood of red curls that hung down over her toned shoulders, giving her an almost leonine appearance. Her face was lightly freckled, with light pink lips, soft ginger brows and two pure blue eyes accentuated by the blue woad patterns daubed under her cheeks in the shape of dragon wings. Now it was Jack who fell still and silent as he looked up at this woman. She was seriously beautiful.

She was also holding a 46-inch long claymore pointed directly towards his sister's throat.

"You, lass," the red-haired woman spoke in the clear, deep accent of a Scottish Celt. "What dae ah call ye?"

"Rapunzel, my lady," Rapunzel squeaked nervously.

"An' who is the white-haired lad that stands wi' ye?"

"My name's Jack, my lady," he replied. "I'm her brother."

"Well then, Jack an' Rapunzel," the Scotswoman continued, "dae ye have cramp in yer legs this mornin'?"

Her tone was gentle but Rapunzel picked up on the masked order: an order to them to bow as well. Immediately she lowered herself to her knees, followed by Jack seconds later.

The Scotswoman turned her sword towards the previously drunken girl. "An' you, Ruffnut! This is the secon' time ah've caught ye drunk on duty! Makin' advances on the prince, noo? See tae it tha' it doesnae happen agin, ye hear me?"

"Yes, my lady," the drunken girl whimpered, and Rapunzel turned her head to see that she, like Merida, wore a dragon emblem upon her shoulder: the symbol of the Dragon Guard.

Outside the tent, another dragon stood, a big Gronckle with deep brown skin and yellow eyes. Its rider was a 6'1'' man in a blue and white kilt and hard grey armour, with two long plumes protruding from his helmet like a pair of rabbit's ears. The hooded boy let down his hood and walked reluctantly over to the Gronckle, using the bumps on its skin to climb up onto its back and sit in the saddle behind the big man.

"Bunnymund?" the Scotswoman spoke, sheathing her sword. Then the big man lifted the visor of his helmet to reveal a furry bluish-grey face with a pink wedge nose, two prominent upper teeth and sharp green eyes. Rapunzel quickly realized that the two plumes were in fact _real_ rabbit's ears, and the man himself wasn't a man, but a human-sized rabbit, a Pooka, her mother used to call them. "Tak' Prince Hiccup back tae the castle."

"Aye, Princess Merida," the Pooka Bunnymund replied in a strong Irish accent.

Rapunzel's eyes widened in awe. This was the famous Princess Merida! Daughter of Fergus, the Bear King of Dunbroch, greatest archer and swordswoman in all of Scotland, and commander of the Berkian Dragon Guard. They say when she was only nine years old she shot a giant kraken through the skull with just one arrow. Rapunzel had admired her greatly.

So it was with some surprise that she noticed the Scotswoman shooting her an almost imperceptible glare before she turned her dragon and walked away from the tent into the street, followed quickly by Bunnymund's Gronckle.

As she and her brother left the tent, Rapunzel felt elated. All in one day, she'd met two of the Berkian Dragon Guard and the prince of Berk at the same time. She'd heard so many stories about these people, but she never expected to actually meet them. And the Prince had been so handsome(thoughts reflected by Jack as he remembered the red-headed Scot).

Their mood was quickly soured, though, as they saw that Sven was still waiting for them outside, but no longer with a cart attached to him.

"Oh, dear," Rapunzel said. "Uncle Mildew's not going to like this."

Through the corridors of Castle Berk Lady Gothel walked. Gothel was a Saxon noblewoman, one who had first came to Berk after her family was captured during a raid by the Outcast tribe and sold as slaves. The young Gothel was imprisoned, beaten with a whip and abused by her master, until Stoick interceded and gave her freedom as a member of his court. From that point on, Gothel worked her way up the social ladder, learning guile, persuasiveness and other political techniques, until she finally became Berk's leading steward and King Stoick's advisor. In addition, she had a long network of informants running through the kingdom. Whenever news spread in Berk, Gothel was always among the first to receive it.

Gothel was a charismatic woman. She was tall and slender, with elegant cheekbones, soft pink lips, polished nails and a curvaceous figure. Her hair was long and curly like Merida's, but in contrast to the Scottish princess, Gothel's hair was pure ebony and more refined. She dressed in a deep red dress, almost like rich wine, two brown leather boots and a fur collar coated gold, made from the most expensive fabrics in all Berk. Small wonder that Stoick had decided to form a political allegiance between his people and Gothel's by marrying her to his son Prince Hiccup, overlooking the fact that Gothel was at least 40, far too old for a teenage Viking prince.

The only clue that Gothel wasn't all that pleasant was the current steely glint in her grey eyes, as she strode the corridors with her hands tightly locked together. Indeed, she was not even a chaste bride for young Hiccup; a few people suggested that Gothel owned a whorehouse in the more disreputable parts of Berk, and frequently visited it in order to indulge herself with the men there. Certainly Gothel knew how to use her physical charms to wind people around her elegant fingers, but in the court she preferred to use her intellectual strength to hold the high ground.

"Lady Gothel! Lady Gothel!" came a rough cry as Gothel's Viking manservant, Dagur, ran out from a door adjacent to her left. Dagur was a more disreputable Viking, from a disreputable family. Although a large percentage of the Viking tribes living in Berk and the surrounding islands were civilized to the most extent, a few tribes were a living reason why they called it the "Barbaric" Archipelago. There were the Lava-Louts, a brutal people who threw their victims into live volcanoes for entertainment. The Murderous Tribe, who were dangerously sadistic. The Hysteric Tribe, famous for being evilly insane. And the Outcast Tribe, who while not entirely evil, weren't completely trustworthy either. Dagur came from the worst tribe, the Berserker Tribe, famous for being brutal, bloodthirsty, untrustworthy _and_ insane. He was the most psychopathic of all.

Although he dressed in a rich green tunic and wore inoffensive-looking armour, Dagur's inner darkness showed in his expression. He was tall and with well-built muscles, and a jagged red scar running down his right cheek to reflect the purple war-paint stripes on his left cheek. His green eyes glinted over his deadly grin, and his unkempt messy ponytail and short, dense beard were as red as the blood he delighted in spilling during his job as Berk's Chief Executione r(Stoick considered it the best job for a torturer like Dagur).

"Yes, Dagur?" Gothel asked, her own voice rich and smooth like her flawless skin.

"King Stoick requests your presence in the Great Hall," the Berserker continued, stifling a sadistic giggle. "He looks angry."

"King Stoick's looked angry ever since his wife died," Gothel quipped. "What has provoked his temper this time?"

"Prince Hiccup left the safety of the castle- _yet again_ ," Dagur sniggered. "Is that the behaviour you expect from your future husband?"

Gothel laughed sultrily and pinched Dagur's cheeks- other Vikings could be killed for that, but Gothel was immune to Dagur's rages. "My _dear_ Dagur," she purred, her lips pursed condescendingly. "After I marry Prince Hiccup, the little boy may throw himself into Helhiem's Gate for all I care. My eye is set on a greater prize."

Dagur chuckled with genuine friendliness as opposed to the usual sadistic cackle he kept for his victims; Gothel was one of the few people in Berk he actually liked, since she fully approved of his bloodthirsty nature, instead of condemning it like the royal families.

As they stopped to open two solid oak doors, a small old woman wearing mossy green robes tied with a rope belt emerged from behind them. Her hair was grey and done up in a large beehive shape, her bulging eyes a deep amber colour, and her bent arthritic fingers protruded from voluminous sleeves. She grinned, exposing multiple missing teeth, and a large crow squawked good-naturedly from her shoulders. And then she walked ahead, chanting in Gaelic under her breath.

Dagur turned his head to look at her as she walked off. The woman was a druid, a Celtic priest, one who combined magic with her customs, and so seemed similar to a witch. The crow was a familiar, a pet gifted with the power of human speech and intelligence so that she would have a companion in her mystic studies.

"Ho, Lady Gothel!" Dagur shouted as he jogged up the stairs after her. "Why did that druid carry a crow on her shoulder? Is it so she can use it as a mouthpiece for the Tuatha?"

Gothel smirked. "That's why you're my favourite servant, Dagur," she said. "Your thirst for knowledge balances out your thirst for blood."

She then came to an abrupt halt, since they had now reached the door to Gothel's study. The door was ajar. And the room smelt like a crow's wet feathers.

Her suspicions rising, Gothel entered the study. It was a capacious room, a mixture between a menagerie and a library, filled with huge plants of every description, as well as animals in glass tanks and cages(fish, dragons, birds, and a snow leopard she bought from a Xiongnu merchant), and gigantic bookshelves. The book Gothel was looking for lay discarded and open upon the floor, its pages gaping and stained with soil. The Saxon woman darted over and lifted the book, flipping the pages until she reached the one she wanted. The pages were hollowed out, leaving several tiny indentations big enough to hold tiny seeds.

" _That robbing hag_ ," Gothel hissed in her native tongue. She turned to a large flower pot which the druid had clearly knocked over in her clumsiness. Brushing away the soil with her fingers, Gothel finally exposed a round metal band, pure red and spiked around the top with curved tooth shapes, like tusks. Seven runic letters were inscribed into its surface.

"Well, here's something she didn't take," Gothel sighed. She then turned to Dagur and fixed her finger on him. "Dagur, fetch the Lava-Lout guards, and close the city gates. No-one leaves until that druid is mine."

Rapunzel and Jack were still trying to sell their cart-less caribou, when they saw the gates to the city close in front of them. Around the perimeter of the market place stood the imposing Lava-Louts, Vikings with pure red beards streaked with orange and wearing hard black armour that hid their faces and gave the impression they were cut from the volcano's heart. Between them stood Dagur, calling aloud into the crowd.

"On the orders of Lady Gothel, Chief Berkian Steward, until I find my target, none shall pass this gate!" he shouted. "The person I seek is an old druid woman with a crow, a robber! Anyone who isn't a robber, don't be afraid! I'm not going to hurt you…You! In the green cape! What's that on your shoulder? Is that a crow?"

The two siblings, shrugging off their initial worry, then continued trying to sell Sven the caribou, if only half-heartedly.

"Caribou for sale!" Rapunzel called. "He's great at pulling carts!"

"…Providing you've got carts to pull in the first place," Jack grumbled.

He then heard a loud cough, and turned to see a small old woman with a crow on one shoulder, hiding behind one flank of the great market sculpture.

"Psst! You twa! Over here," she hissed, in a Scot accent much like Merida's.

They walked over towards her, leading Sven by his rein.

"Ah'll give ye ten gold ones for that deer, lass," she whispered.

Rapunzel could hear Dagur fiercely interrogating the crowd for the druid, but Rapunzel felt sympathetic to her plight somehow. "Just ten?" she asked.

"Ah'm on a serious mission, lass," the witch replied. "It cuild save mah life, or end it."

Jack tried to react nonchalantly. "Fair enough, here you go," he held out Sven's reins, and the caribou grunted warmly towards the old woman's hand.

"Oh, we havenae got that kind of money on us," a harsh yet quiet croak of a voice added. Rapunzel's eyes widened upon realizing that it was the crow who spoke.

"Your crow talks!" she said.

The druid woman slapped the corvid to stop him attracting anyone. "Bu' if ye wan' yer money noo, ye can find it at the temple where I worship."

Rapunzel shook her head. "Look, we don't doubt your honesty, and it would be better to see our reindeer in the hands of a priest than a slaughterhouse owner, but our uncle won't let us come home without any money."

"Aye! Sae ah'll give ye substitute money first." And the druid reached inside her robes and removed her hand clenched into a fist. When she opened it, it was full of tiny ovular yellow seeds.

Rapunzel gasped in awe. These seeds were almost golden, as though reflecting the sunlight off their kernels. Jack, in contrast, just looked perplexed.

"You're paying us with seeds?" he asked.

"These arenae jist seeds, lad," the druid snapped anxiously. "They're items frae ancient times of myth, kept an' preserved by we druids o' Berk."

Jack frowned. "How can seeds be that special?"

"They're valuable to us, lad," the crow replied. "Ah'd like tae think they're worth a lot moore than ten gold coins."

The druid slapped him again, then pressed the seeds into Rapunzel's palms. "Now, whate'er happens tae us, lass, ye an' yer brother must return these seeds tae the temple o' the Dagda jist a few miles north o' the castle. If Brother Pabbi an' Sister Gothi show up, gi' them the seeds an' tell them ye're deliverin' fer Sister Cailleach an' Bran. An' ah give ye me word they'll gi' yer the gold."

"But Sister Cailleach," Rapunzel protested. "Jack's right, why would your friends want to pay us that much money for a handful of seeds?"

The old druid reached up to put a gnarled hand on Rapunzel's shoulder. "Listen carefully, lass. These seeds are magical an' dangerously powerful. Whoe'er has these cuild dae somethin' o' great evil. Ye must make sure they ne'er fall intae the wrong hands. Keep them in yer sight, and dinnae drop them in water…or fire."

Rapunzel frowned and looked down at the seeds. She remembered her father's old story, about the druids planting magic seeds and discovering a bridge to the Fomorians' world. But before she could ask any more questions, she looked up to see Sven riding off with Sister Cailleach on his back, the crow flying a short distance behind. At that same moment, Dagur looked up as well, and his green eyes bulged in hungry glee.

"There's the druid!" he shrieked. "Don't let her get away!"

The Lava-Louts roared and drew their clubs before charging off through the streets of Berk. Sister Cailleach quickly snapped her fingers as she passed a stall, magically throwing a large and weighty grapefruit at one of the soldiers, knocking him over to the ground. Next Bran the crow flew at another Lava-Lout, perching on his helmet and stabbing his vulnerable eyes through the slots in his helmet. So they continued, distracting and dodging, until they finally rounded a corner just as one of the Lava-Louts threw a bolas at the old druid, the weighted ropes snaring her upper body and knocking her off the caribou. Sven gave a panicked grunt and narrowly sprinted off, while Bran squawked and flew over to tend to his mistress. The Lava-Louts pressed in on all sides, and Cailleach clenched her fist and magically shot fire at one of the Louts, but his heat-resistant shield just allowed him to press further in. To make matters worse, Dagur then gaily strolled in front of her, fingering his axe lovingly.

"Nice to meet you, old hag," he chuckled. "You and me are going to have a little chat."

 **Sorry about the delay! I just got side-tracked by other important things during the week and was trying to get everything right. Anyway, I hope to get the third chapter up sooner, so in the meantime, please review if you like this(if you don't like it, don't review it OR read it).**

 **Until next time,**

 **Sammael29**


	3. Chapter 3

Rapunzel Chapter 3

The Flower of Power

After returning to the palace, Prince Hiccup removed his cloak as he and the Guardians walked along the corridor leading to the Great Hall. Beneath it, the young prince wore a forest-green tunic, along with a brown fur vest, dark grey trousers and fur-trimmed boots. He may be royalty, but he was _Viking_ royalty, and Vikings dressed for practical reasons, not to flaunt their wealth.

Beside him, Merida removed her own cloak, then wiped the war-paint from her face with one hand.

"Merida, I hope you can forgive me," Hiccup sighed.

"Wha' should ah fergive ye fer, Hiccup?" she asked, before removing the war-paint by wiping her hand on a towel provided by one of the maids.

"For making you constantly need to run after me with the rest of the Dragon Guard," he replied, running his hands through his hair in quiet frustration. "I know you have enough on your hands already, but…I can't stay in the palace all my life. I need to get out."

Merida's empathic expression abruptly changed to one of respectful deference as they finally entered the Great Hall. Hiccup looked up to the throne and took a deep breath, bracing himself for the big telling-off his father was undoubtedly going to give him.

To say Mildew was displeased by his young wards' failure would not be an adequate description. He was positively outraged, as he stood half-in, half-out of the sunlight glaring at the bright golden seeds Rapunzel and Jack had brought back from the city.

"Ten years I've taken care of ye both when no-one else would," he grumbled, his expression sour like that of a dragon trying to eat an eel(sick to the taste). "I've kept ye from starving, I've given ye good clothes, I've kept a place for ye in my house. I'm a humble man, my dedication doesn't need too great a reward. So _why_ have ye brought me a handful of useless seeds?!"

"Look, we're sorry, Uncle Mildew, alright?" Rapunzel protested. "Next morning, we'll go to the temple and we'll return them to the other druids to get our money."

Mildew scoffed incredulously. "Ye can't be serious. Why would ye take that old hag's words seriously? Druids steal from people, Rapunzel! And from what ye've told me, this one was wanted by the crown! By rights I should punish ye for helping her alone!"

"She wasn't doing anything to harm us!" Jack complained.

Mildew shushed him fiercely. "Jack, you and yer sister aren't children anymore. Ye can't keep living in stories!"

"Furthermore, our kingdom needs a responsible ruler," King Stoick the Vast reprimanded his son as he sat at the throne in his crown and royal robes, while the court artist, Spand, was doing his portrait.

Rapunzel was Jack's sister yet looked nothing like him. So, too, did King Stoick look completely different from Hiccup. In contrast to his son's shortness, Stoick stood at 6'9, taller than most Vikings, and beneath his huge bison-fur robes, he wore an impressive red scale-armour breastplate, complemented by his studded leather vambraces.

In addition, while Hiccup wasn't strong enough to lift a hammer, and could barely churn out the tiniest chin hairs, Stoick had the muscles of a Viking champion, and was said to have twisted a dragon's head clean off its body when he was only a child. His long red beard was done up in multiple braids, and the only clue you had that he was Hiccup's father was their pure green eyes; although while Hiccup's were wide with enthusiasm, Stoick's were commonly narrowed in a deadly glare.

Seated across the hall from Stoick were a few representatives of the noble Scottish families who first made allegiance with Berk; Lord Darmid Macintosh, the flamboyant ruler of Inverness; Lord James Macguffin, the brawny chieftain of the Orkneys; and Lord Gerald Dingwall, the short-statured, short-tempered lord of Galloway. Gothel stood beside Stoick's throne looking composed and quiet.

Spand-or Bucket, as he was better known- adjusted the metal pail covering his head wound and rubbed his blonde beard irritably. "King Stoick, please stop moving."

Stoick raised his eyebrows. "Oh, was I? I keep forgetting, sorry."

Hiccup looked at the huge mirror reflecting Stoick's image for Bucket to paint. "I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use a mirror to do a painting."

"Hiccup, you can't keep running off whenever it pleases you," Stoick continued. "One day you will be the king of Berk. I don't want anything to hurt you."

"But according to you, a real Viking ruler should be tall and strong and fierce and brave," Hiccup protested. "They shouldn't be like…" he pointed at his whole body. "What I am."

"Ye jus' pointed tae all af ye," Lord Macguffin pointed out, his voice registering the surprise hidden in his face by those huge blonde eyebrows.

"Hiccup, what gives you the impression I doubt your skill as a ruler?" Stoick defended himself.

Hiccup shrugged sarcastically. "Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that you're ordering me to get wed to a Saxon noblewoman more than twice as old as me whom I'm not in love with? No offense, Lady Gothel."

Gothel smiled graciously, inwardly relieved that Dagur was busy off torturing the druid woman. If he had heard Hiccup, he might well have brashly asked " _How is that not offensive_?!" and then insult one of the Celtic lords(they were rather protective of Hiccup) into fighting him right then and there. She may not love Hiccup herself, but she would prefer to hide that from the rest of the court until her vengeance came into fruition. Merida, meanwhile, tried not to smile as she heard Hiccup speak out for himself.

"This is why you keep running away?" Stoick asked, turning his head, topped with a crown of silver dragon teeth.

"Your Majesty, please don't move," Bucket chided. Stoick gritted his teeth and turned his head back.

"Yes!" Hiccup insisted. "Because you still don't think I'm any stronger than the day I was born!"

Stoick chuckled sadly. "You remind me of your mother."

"Ye remind me of yer father," Mildew groused. "Too stuck in his own dreams to be of any use!"

And with that, the old Saxon irritably flicked the seeds off the table.

Rapunzel and Jack, remembering Sister Cailleach's warning, got down and started picking the seeds off the floorboards, trying to keep them safe.

"Look, Uncle Mildew, I know this looks bad, but we can still make up for it," Jack said, trying to calm his uncle's temper.

"What is there left to make up for?" Mildew grunted sourly, before getting to his feet and walked over to a large chest. As he walked, his feet made the floorboards creak and flex, and a single seed which the pair hadn't picked up dropped through a gap and under the floor.

Mildew prized open the chest, exposing old items- a pair of woodcarving tools, Celtic torc necklaces, bear-shaped wooden toys(lots of these), and some old books. "To think I should be reduced to selling yer parent's _toys_. The market should give me a whole weeks' worth for these, even if I take longer to get there than I would if we still had that caribou." He glared at his relatives.

Rapunzel was shocked by his attitude. "You've got no right to sell Father's things!"

"I had every right to sell the cart! And the stag!" Mildew snapped hoarsely. "And you and Jack have to pull yer weight as well if ye want to stay on this farm! If ye can't do that, what will ye do? Join the Dragon Guard! Ha! Ye might be able to do accursed magic, but yer too weak to defend yerself out there."

He sighed, then lowered his gaze, his expression more quietly disappointed than angry now. "Rapunzel, all ye had to do was sell the horse and get enough thatch to repair the leak in the roof. Ye need to be responsible for yer actions now."

"And how am I going to do that unless you let me make my mark?" Hiccup pleaded, now looking up imploringly at his father. "Father, allow me to leave the castle by myself. I'll show my skills as a leader by learning more about my subjects. And I can't do that with half the Dragon Guard following me all over the city grounds."

Merida felt somewhat hurt by Hiccup's remark. Ever since childhood, they'd been brought up together. Why was he refusing her friendship now? She glanced over to her mother, who quietly looked up and gave her a sympathetic gaze.

Stoick, meanwhile, heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. As his name suggested, he was a serious man, he needed to be in order to rule over Berk. But emotional matters were something he had more trouble with.

"Your Majesty, I've told you enough times!..." Bucket began, with the half-hearted impatience of a teacher correcting his student, but Stoick's eyes locked onto his, and he withdrew. Stoick's fierce gaze was his real strength as a warrior; he didn't need to exert his influence by drawing an axe or raising his voice. But his gaze softened now, as he stepped forward to speak to Hiccup.

"Hiccup, the day I lost your mother to the fury of the Romans was one of my darkest yet," he said, his voice heavy with regret. "A Viking ruler must protect his own, and I cannot risk your safety above anyone else's."

"When the plague claimed my brother, it was my darkest yet," Mildew sternly grumbled as he got to his feet and opened the cottage doors. "But ye know what made it darker? Having to take care of his own plagues. The ones I still take care of now."

And his acidic glare made tears well up in Rapunzel's eyes. She had never like Uncle Mildew as much as her father, but to hear him refer to her and her brother as a plague-a burden- stuck deep. She barely glanced up when Mildew finally limped off outside wearing his rustic brown cape and hood, sinking into her brother's embrace and pouring her grief out.

"Yet if I wasn't born such a hiccup, if I was an…extra large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side, like Snotlout or Eret or Thuggory," Hiccup vividly remembered his bullish cousin, the Celtic trapper and the Meathead prince. "Instead of a talking fishbone, then you'd let me have a say in who I decided to marry. And my mother insisted that I should only get married to someone I love!"

Hiccup's voice broke slightly upon saying this, and Merida could feel her own eyes getting wet. Hiccup couldn't know just deeply she, too, wished he could choose his wife for himself.

Stoick looked visibly frustrated, but before he could say anything, Gothel stepped forward and placed a tender hand on his shoulder.

"Forgive me, my King," she said respectfully. "But I don't think you'll get anywhere in your current attitude. Let me speak to my fiancé, alone."

With this said, Gothel walked over to Hiccup, taking him by the arm(while Merida fought the urge to grab her bow and shoot Gothel for making him look so uncomfortable), and then leading him away into the Feast Hall, just a door's distance from the throne.

Inside the Hall, Gothel let go of Hiccup's arm and turned to him, her expression more serious.

"Why do you want to leave the palace, Hiccup?" she sighed dramatically, throwing an arm over her eyes. "You have a father who cares for you, a castle full of servants and guards who love you, and here you are secure from the evil outside. And you want to throw that away?"

"Gothel, listen…" Hiccup tried butting in, but she cut him off.

"Trust me, Hiccup, the world outside the walls of Berk is dark, and cruel, and selfish. If it finds even one spot of precious beauty…it destroys it."

She then walked over to cradle his face within her hands, in a way which made him feel like a bird being stroked by the hunter before snapping its neck.

" _Look at you, so innocent of malice,_

 _You're eager to get out, I don't doubt._

 _You know why you live inside the palace…_ "

"But..!"

" _That's right, to keep you safe and sound, dear._

 _Guess I should have known this day was coming,_

 _Known that soon you'd want to leave the nest._

 _Soon, but not yet._

 _Trust me, my pet,_

 _Gothel…knows…best_."

Gothel then pulled on a rope, closing the hatches in the Hall ceiling. Immediately, the hall was plunged into shadows, apart from the lit torches on the walls. Gothel continued singing as she stealthily darted around the hall, pushing at Hiccup and using her torch to illuminate certain parts of the décor.

" _Gothel knows best, the world outside is scary,_

 _Here you're safe, my Viking prince._

 _Gothel knows best, if you aren't too wary,_

 _You'll meet things that make me wince._

 _Minotaurs, sharks, savage Monstrous Nightmares,_

 _Romans, swords and snakes,_

 _The Orcs."_

Hiccup flinched as Gothel illuminated a sculpture of a snarling Orc with her torch. He'd heard enough accounts of the brutal fighting spirit of these monsters.

" _Also mad dogs,_

 _Men with pointy teeth,_

 _And-stop! No more,_

 _You'll just upset me!_

 _Gothel's right here,_

 _Gothel will protect you,_

 _All I have is one request…_ "

She finally stepped forward and opened one of the windows, allowing light in on her and Hiccup, as she ran over to embrace him( a curious mixture of softness and edginess).

"Hiccup?" the Saxon woman said quietly.

"Yes, Lady Gothel?" Hiccup replied, his fighting edge nulled by Gothel's nightmarish performance, but his unease still rankling.

"Don't ever try to leave this castle _again_ ," was Gothel's steely reply. "Here is the only place where you are safe. And you will marry me, because I am the only person best suited to protecting the heir to the throne. Now never speak of this again. Deal?"

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided," Hiccup dryly remarked.

" _Deal_?" Gothel added, with slightly more edge to her tone.

Hiccup bristled visibly. " _Whatever you say, my Queen_ ," he spat, before running off, out of the Feast Hall and through the throne room, ignoring the worried cries of his father and the lords as he raced off to his own chambers, to get away from his stubborn father and the woman he was being forced to marry, off to the few friends he knew would support his opinions.

"He never listens to me!" Hiccup cried in frustration. He was inside his chambers speaking to Merida, Toothless(who had grown into a handsome dragon over the years), and Gobber the Belch, the palace blacksmith, almost a second father to Hiccup.

"Of course, Hiccup," Gobber sighed. A brawny bald half-Celt, half-Viking with a blonde moustache done up in rope-like braids, his military experience had left him with one wooden leg and multiple prosthetic hands for different purposes. His current hand was a large comb running through Hiccup's hair repeatedly. "But then, it's a family thing."

"Ye're no' makin' him feel any better, Gobber," Merida snapped.

"And whenever he does listen, he always has this disappointed expression," Hiccup continued. "As though someone decided to chew the meat on his plate and spit it out."

"You're looking at this the wrong way, lad," Gobber replied. "It's not what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand."

"Thank ye fer yer perfect motivational speeches, Gobber," Merida groaned sarcastically, slumping back-first on Hiccup's bed.

"My point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not," the blacksmith responded.

"I just want to be like all the rest of you," Hiccup protested. "To be accepted. To be a true Viking. To be the leader everyone expects me to be and not the royal mess I am. To be able to fight my own battles and not have to marry Gothel to fight them for me."

"Well, she's the most powerful noblewoman in all of Berk. What do you want Stoick to tell her?" Gobber asked dryly, lowering his voice to imitate Stoick's and waving his massive shoulders like a mountain shrugging. "'I'm sorry, Lady Gothel. Prince Hiccup doesn't feel ready for this. In fact, he may not ever feel ready for this. So the wedding's off, and that's that. I'll expect your declarations of war in the morning."

"When has he ever done that with his shoulders?" Hiccup asked incredulously, while Toothless raised a scaly brow and grunted.

"Look, Hiccup," Merida said, standing up to look into his eyes. "Whit we're tryin' tae tell ye, is we dinnae like ye havin' tae marry Gothel any more than ye dae, but ye're no' gonnae make yer father think ye're any stronger by repeatedly runnin' off wi'oot ony weapons or provisions. Whit ye're searchin' for isnae oot there. It's in here." She laid a hand over his breast tenderly. "Perhaps ye just dinnae see it yet."

Hiccup nodded slowly, taking hold of Merida's hand. "You're right, Merida. What I'm looking for is in my heart. And what my heart's telling me now is that I can't marry Gothel. This isn't going to happen. Not if I have any say in it."

"Where does he get it all from?... Has the attention span of a sparrow…" Stoick the Vast muttered distractedly in his private chambers. The king had dispensed of his heavy armour and his helmet-crown as he emptied a bucket of meat into the huge wooden tray for his dragon's dinner.

"Ah take it the talk didnae gae too well?" a heavy Scots baritone interrupted the Viking ruler's stress-releasing muttering. Into the chamber came King Fergus and Queen Elinor, Merida's parents and the closest thing Hiccup had to an aunt and uncle.

Fergus, in contrast to his tall yet slender daughter, was a veritable giant, his muscular frame barely contained by clothes of the same tartan as his daughter's. His massive studded leather greaves, the cape of black bear fur that surmounted his impressive shoulders, and the cudgel that served him as a wooden leg all pointed at his formidable reputation as a warrior, yet the clear, jolly light in his pure blue eyes and the wide stretch of his mouth indicated a softer, warmer side to his personality.

This same warmth was reflected in the deep brown eyes and flowing braided hair of his wife. Elinor, less than half the height of her husband, nonetheless bore herself with an air of queenly grace and dignity. And her rich and vibrant nature showed in the flowing robes of green and gold she wore.

"Ah, Fergus. What gave it away?" Stoick remarked dryly, as he turned to face his old friend.

"Yer mutterin', brother," Fergus replied. "Ye mutter whene'er there's aught troublin' ye."

"It's Hiccup…again," Stoick groaned, rubbing his heavy brows. "Every time he leaves the palace, chaos ensues. Can he not see that I have other things to worry about than his upcoming marriage?"

"Ah, the lad's only ten-an'-eight. An' he's a Vikin'! Can ye imagine a worse combination?" Fergus brushed his small beard and massive moustache with an idle finger. "Remember how stubborn an' senseless _ye_ used tae be back in the day?"

He then looked at Stoick, frowned, then stroked his beard again. "Then again, no' a lot's changed, really."

Elinor shook her head at her husband's laughable tactlessness, then tenderly placed a hand on Stoick's shoulder. "Yer son cannae be blamed fer no' wantin' tae get married sae soon, Stoick. It must come as sudden tae him. Even ah had doubts aboot me own marriage."

Fergus had heard all this before, yet ultimately he and Elinor had come to love each other despite their differences. He reminisced about how Merida had nearly impaled Lord Macintosh's son to the wall using 12 arrows when he attempted to claim her hand.

"What am I going to do about him?" Stoick asked. "About Hiccup. He can't keep running away from his responsibilities. If he refuses Gothel's hand, we may well lose her support."

"Sae teach Hiccup how tae be a ruler," Fergus interrupted. "Put him in martial trainin' just like our Merida."

Stoick shook his head. "You cannot be serious, Fergus."

"Whit, just because ah climbed doon the highest peak in Raven Point by usin' me own kilt as a rope, ye think ah cannae be serious?" Fergus incredulously grunted.

"Look, I don't doubt Hiccup's strength, Fergus, but a chief must acknowledge his flaws as well as his strengths," Stoick continued. "When I was a boy, my father took me into the forest and told me to punch a stone column a mile wide. I thought he was insane, but I did it. And do you know what happened after?"

"Aye, ye bruised yer brawny mitts," Fergus dryly remarked under his breath.

"That column fell to the ground," Stoick continued. "It taught me what a Viking hero could do. He could fell forests, tame the seas, conquer mountains. Even as a boy, I knew what a Viking was, what I had to become. Hiccup, he is not that kind of boy."

"Ye're right. Hiccup's his own kind o' boy," Fergus agreed, placing a large hand on Stoick's shoulder to compliment his wife's own. "An' that's why ye need tae put him in trainin'."

Elinor nodded. "As hard as this may seem tae ye, Stoick, ye cannae always protect him. The best ye can dae is tae prepare him. Because he's gonnae get oot there agin. He's probably oot there noo."

Inside the castle corridors, Gothel stalked yet again. Dagur had held the Druid hag in the dungeons for more than a few hours. Now it was time to see if his tactics had proved persuasive enough. The Saxon noblewoman had dispensed with her fur-lined cloak and was armed with a large curved dagger tucked into her belt. The expression in her face was that of a butcher about to open the lamb's veins.

As she walked along the corridor, a figure in a black cloak brushed past her, wearing the hood up and obscuring his face. Beside him walked a similarly-hooded dragon, of pure midnight-blue. Gothel came to an abrupt halt for a few seconds, then turned to glance at the departing pair. The dragon had two piscine fins folded on its tail both above and below. The only dragon in Berk with such a tail was a Night Fury. And who else owned a Night Fury in the palace but…?

Gothel shook her head, turned, dismissed the hooded figure. So what if Prince Hiccup was escaping again? He didn't matter to her. Pretty much no-one mattered to her apart from Dagur, and soon she would have the prize she sought after.

Descending the narrow, winding staircase that led to the dungeons, Gothel allowed herself a smile upon hearing a fierce bark and a choked cry of pain. That little Celtic pest would come to regret being such a thorn in Gothel's flank.

She reached the chamber doors, imposing, gnarled and painted red. With a threatening creak, Gothel pushed the doors open, then stalked in to behold Dagur, his hair standing up, his arms bare and bloodstained, and a small, thin dagger in one hand. As the grinning Berserker turned and bowed respectfully, he gave Gothel full view of Sister Cailleach.

The old woman had been deprived of her shawl and was locked into the chair in which she sat by her chained wrists, thin and miserable. Her hair had fallen clumsily and sprawled across her face, bruised, bleeding, and with a horrific black eye. Bran the crow looked just as abused as his mistress, his feathers bedraggled and plucked out in places. It was an indications of Dagur's cruel mercy that either of them were still alive even.

"I've had to cancel meeting a sturdy redhead at my brothel tonight, Dagur. Anything to report?" Gothel asked, her tone placid and indifferent.

Dagur shook his head, an ugly scowl distorting his already ugly face. "No, Lady Gothel," he grunted. "I've tried everything short of the Blood Eagle on her, and still she refuses to speak. It's like getting blood out of a stone."

Gothel rolled her eyes. "To get blood out of a stone, Dagur," she said, pushing past the Berserker to stand in front of his victim. "Make sure that stone is good and flaking."

She then leaned downwards to get dangerously close to the witch's face. "Listen to my every word, Grandmother," she said, her voice completely devoid of any anger or vindictiveness, as cold as the breath of a Bewilderbeast. "Your fate now will be decided by the next words to come out of your mouth. Either you can stay quiet, and face death at my hands, or you can tell me where those seeds are hidden, and _perhaps_ I can persuade Dagur to be lenient with you. It's your choice."

"It is…no' me choice… whate'er ye say, monster," Sister Cailleach groaned, coughing and wincing as blood ran down her cheeks. "Ah'm deid whether ah speak or no'… Jus' finish me off noo."

Gothel laughed with disturbing gaiety. "Oh, Grandmother, I hate having to fight those who are weaker than myself, especially when I've done nothing wrong…"

"Nothin' wrong?! Are ye speaking from yer gob or yer backside noo, lass?" Bran the crow cawed weakly yet scornfully. "Ye stole the seeds an' the sacred croon! Ye havenae ony right tae claim yer actions be good."

Cailleach straightened up in her seat, heedless of the agony that wracked her frame. "Those seeds were created by the god o' light. But wha' they lead me people to was a world o' darkness. An' wha' lives in that world… is worse than evil. Nothin' short o' consumin' all mankind will appease their hunger. An' ye cannae control those monsters… By the will of the Tuatha… ye will fail, _Lady Gothel_."

The old druid laughed scornfully and spat out a broken tooth at Gothel's feet. Gothel should have felt the flames of anger roar within her. Instead, she was cold but determined. This old hag wanted to stand between her and her vengeance? Then let her be killed for it.

"I hope the Tuatha appreciate your efforts, _Hag_ ," she said, no longer showing any respect in her tone for the old woman, "because you're not going to stop me. You want me to finish you off? I will gladly oblige you."

And with deadly speed, Gothel pulled her dagger from her belt and whipped it across the druid's throat. Sister Cailleach slumped sideways in her chair; after all the cuts Dagur had dealt her, what ultimately killed her was the force of the dagger whipping her neck hard enough to snap it. Gothel calmly and quickly wiped the blood off her blade, then turned to look at the now visibly cowed Bran, trembling where he perched.

"What shall we do with the bird, Lady Gothel?" Dagur asked, his vicious grin lighting up his face.

"Let him go," Gothel replied, not looking at him.

"What?" Dagur was incredulous at the thought of having to curb his bloodlust. "We can't just do that. He might go to one of the lords and…"

"Please, Dagur," Gothel drawled. "No-one in the entire council of Berk knows whose side we're on. I hardly think we need to worry about a little crow."

A short distance away, Jack and Rapunzel sat in their house, rain hammering down on the rooftops and thunder illuminating the skies outside. As if to reflect Rapunzel and Jack's inner torment at hearing Uncle Mildew as good as disown them, ever since he left the house the weather had been getting worse.

"How stubborn is he?" Jack muttered incredulously. "If he stays out in this weather any longer, he'll drown."

Rapunzel was inattentive to this last remark, only to be snapped out of her sad silence by an insistent hiss from Pascal's tank.

Glaring at the accusatory glance the chameleon was giving her, Rapunzel sighed and got to her feet. "We should go and look for him," she said. "Whatever he's done, he shouldn't have to die in this weather."

Jack nodded, then got to his feet to pick up his staff and don his waterproof cloak. Rapunzel put on her own cloak, then walked over to the door to open it.

As soon as she did, she found an unfamiliar figure standing within the doorframe. A long rain-soaked cloak obscured his figure, and beneath the hood, a black and red helmet obscured the upper half of his face. Standing beside him was a Night Fury, shaking the rain off its scales.

"I'm sorry to intrude," he said in a vaguely nasal voice. "I lost my way in the dark, and I saw your light. I hope you can help me."

"Not at all," Rapunzel replied. "Please, come in." Jack stood aside to give the man entry to the house. The Night Fury entered behind him, grunting gently.

"My name's Jack," the white-haired boy explained, removing his cloak yet again. "This is my sister Rapunzel." Rapunzel smiled and curtsied.

"Hello, Rapunzel. It's nice to meet you," the hooded man said, bowing and folding down his cloak. It was then that Rapunzel saw his eyes- pure green eyes both bright and tender. And she realized that it must be more than a coincidence that she should have met him twice now in the same day.

For this man was none other than Prince Hiccup.

 **Hello again everyone. Now, before you start having a go at me for how long it took me to upload this chapter, I've been distracted and side-tracked with lots of things for all this time. A theatre performance, film nights, and the news that my family will be moving to Wales at some point.**

 **But I'm sorry I didn't update any sooner! From this point on, I'm going to write and upload my chapters far quicker now.**

 **See you again in the next chapter,**

 **Sammael29!**


	4. Chapter 4

Rapunzel Chapter 4

Prince Hiccup walked around Rapunzel's house, taking everything in. The house was a small, simplistic wooden house, with a thatched roof and a few gaps between the rafters, through which the odd raindrop fell with a _splip_. The tables were made of simple, unembellished wood, a large wooden trunk hung in one corner, and inside a glass tank, a green lizard sat, with strange turreted eyes and a crest behind his head- a chameleon, probably bought from a Roman merchant stationed in Africa.

He recognized the two other teens from his brief skirmish in the market tent. The boy was at least 5'9, four inches shorter than Hiccup himself, but seemed much better-built, with toned muscles and a very self-assured stance, that somehow drew greater attention to his pure white hair, crystal blue eyes and pale skin. His sister, in contrast, was very petite and tanned, her button nose sprinkled in freckles, and she wore a simplistic dress of lilac, pink lacing in between, and her hair was more than blond, almost gold, and so long Hiccup was taking care not to trip on it.

Rapunzel, in turn, looked interestedly at the Prince. Although taller than her by a foot, he looked surprisingly small in terms of build, as though he couldn't lift any weapon larger than an axe. His thin nature was accentuated by the sleeveless vest of brown fur he wore under his cape, through which his lanky arms protruded. But at his hip, he wore a straight sword, its hilt black and red with a crossguard in the shape of a dragon's snarling mouth, its blade two short retracted prongs. Beneath his helmet gazed two clear eyes as green as her own.

Rapunzel hung up his coat on a nearby hook as she let Hiccup warm himself by the hearth.

"So, why were you out riding at night in weather like this?" she asked.

"The weather wasn't like this when me and Toothless first left," Hiccup replied. "It was as though the weather followed us here."

"To our house?" Rapunzel asked.

"Aye, to your house."

"Was anyone with you?" Jack asked, looking out into the night as though expecting to see more dragon riders emerge from the storm.

"Right now? No," Hiccup replied, after an uneasy glance out the window.

"Is this a first time for you?" Rapunzel gently teased.

Hiccup chuckled, then reached over to stroke his dragon's head.

"Oh, he's beautiful," Rapunzel murmured, moving towards the Night Fury. "May I?"

Hiccup nodded, then let Rapunzel run her hands down Toothless' smooth back. Grunting in sheer joy, Toothless then turned his crocodilian muzzle towards Rapunzel's face and started licking it repeatedly, showering her with dribble. Rapunzel spluttered and giggled helplessly.

"Oh, stop that, Toothless! Come on," Hiccup protested. "You know I can't wash that out of _my_ clothes!"

Toothless made a deep barking noise which was clearly dragon laughter. Jack grinned smugly, then walked over to join his sister and her new friends by the hearth.

"So, Rapunzel," Hiccup asked. "Do you own this farm?"

Rapunzel laughed a bit shyly, as she wiped her face clean. "Uh, technically not. Our father used to own the farm, but now it belongs to our uncle." She broke off, painfully remembering Uncle Mildew's harsh words earlier. "We just tend to the animals and grow our crops."

"Are these books yours, then?" Hiccup asked as he got up and picked one of her mother's favourites from the basket.

"Yes, they are," Rapunzel agreed.

Hiccup looked through the books. "Hmmm, they're not the kind of things I thought farmers let their children read."

"Well, you can't always go on appearances, can you?" Jack gently chided him. "I mean, you wouldn't think _I_ ever spent a day outdoors, would you? Or that my dear sister could even walk with all that hair." Rapunzel laughed and slapped his arm softly.

Hiccup allowed himself a wry grin. So these two people had something in common with him. "What do you both like to read about?"

"Honestly? We really love adventure," Jack replied.

"Adventure in books? Or adventure in real life?"

"At the moment, books. For as long as we live on this farm under our sour old uncle Mildew, I doubt we'll have a chance to change that," Rapunzel began to loosen up a bit.

"Mildew?" Hiccup was used to strange names, but this name sounded positively loathsome. "What's he like?"

"Wet, grumpy, snarky, ugly, belittling, harsh, and unappreciative," Jack rattled off, as he casually reached out and created a small wind gust to blow out a candle a short distance from him. "He hates anything that's strange to him, including his own family."

Hiccup frowned. "How…how did?"

Rapunzel blushed upon realizing her brother had revealed his magic, then turned to face the Prince. "When we were born, we had the gift of magic. My hair- when I sing, it glows, and it can heal wounds or sicknesses with a touch. Jack, on the other hand- he can fly upon the wind, or call upon the elements of frost and snow. One time we were out in the fields, and a wolf came at us through the wheat. Jack tried to use his powers to scare it, drive it off, but he ended up freezing the whole field solid. Our uncle saw what happened, and he's never forgiven Jack for it."

"He thinks my power damages all it touches," Jack said bitterly. "He only respects Rapunzel because her hair can heal things. But if we do anything to displease him- he rejects us. He considers us a burden upon him."

Hiccup felt a stab of sympathy for the twins. His father could be overprotective and at times neglectful, but this Mildew sounded like a despicable human being. He then noticed a small bruise on Rapunzel's cheek, and felt his sorrow turn to rage.

"That bruise, did he do that to you too?" he said, keeping his voice level.

Rapunzel shook her head. "No, I got that in the market today. There was this drunken Viking girl. I got in her way…so she hit me."

"Why did you get in her way?" This was sounding familiar to Hiccup.

"Because she was trying to make a pass at the Crown Prince of Berk. And I didn't want her to hurt him."

Hiccup scoffed incredulously. "You did it to protect the Crown Prince? Are you sure that isn't something you just read about in your books?"

"Yes, we are," Jack replied. "I was there. I stood behind my sister to get that Viking girl to back off." It was somewhat disappointing to Jack. They'd tried to help the Prince, and he couldn't even remember them.

"Well, how did you recognise the Prince?" Hiccup continued.

"We didn't," Rapunzel replied. "All we saw was that he was in trouble. We only recognized him when the crowd bowed down to us."

"Except it wasn't us they were bowing to," Jack interrupted. "They were bowing to the Dragon Guard. They'd arrived outside the tent. The Princess Merida herself was leading them…" he trailed off for a few moments, allowing himself to remember Merida's beautiful, fierce face.

"Well, in comparison with what happened later on today, it didn't seem important. He might not even remember me…remember us," Rapunzel quickly corrected herself. "I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't."

Jack then leaned forwards to ask his own question. "So, I've noticed you and your dragon appear to be running away from something. Could you tell us what?"

Hiccup laughed, then got to his feet again. "Why do you think Toothless and I are running away from anything? We could be running _after_ something, our own adventure." He looked outside, more wistfully this time.

"Well, what you've ran after at this point, is the light coming from outside, which led you to our house," Rapunzel said, before then adding softly, "My Prince."

At this point, Hiccup was quiet for a few seconds. It was the same Saxon girl who'd stepped between him and Ruffnut! And she remembered who he was! Touched, he no longer saw the use for hiding his face any longer. Hiccup reached up and removed his helmet, revealing his freckled cheeks and tousled auburn hair. He then turned to face Jack and Rapunzel, only to find them both bowed before him.

"Please, don't bow," he said. "Save that for my father. I do hope you don't think I'm stupid for forgetting you."

"No, it's just, I hoped we might remember each other…" Rapunzel said as she got to her feet again.

Hiccup smiled. "Jack, Rapunzel, I want to thank you both, for helping me."

Rapunzel reflected his smile. "We'll gladly do so again."

She then walked over to pick up one of her books and offer it to him. "And until you manage to go on your own adventure, I'd like to give you this."

Hiccup took the book from her, then looked at the cover. "The tale of the Fomorians of Magh Tuiredh. A Celtic tale."

"Yes, our father was a Saxon, our mother was Celtic," Rapunzel agreed. "Our father used to read that story to us."

Hiccup smiled wistfully. "My mother, Queen Valka, she read that story to me too."

Rapunzel chuckled. "I wish you good luck finding whatever you seek, My Prince."

Hiccup shook his head. "Please, Rapunzel. Call me Hiccup."

"Hiccup," Rapunzel repeated. A simple word, yet one which her Saxon tongue pronounced beautifully. Hiccup looked across at her, and four emerald gazed deep inside one another. Jack, from over their shoulder, grinned, happy for his sister. For a moment, everything was perfect.

And then that moment ended.

Earlier, when Mildew had thrown the daffodil seeds onto the floor before leaving the house, one of the seeds Rapunzel and Jack couldn't pick up in time fell under the floorboards and into the soil below the house. There it had lain, completely relaxed and untouched by water, but the falling rain now leaked through the thatched rooftop, between the floorboards, and into the soil. And through the soil it ran, until it finally touched the seed. And the seed began to take up root.

The first that the two young half-Saxons and the Viking prince felt was the floorboards beginning to creak and shake below their feet. Chirping anxiously, Pascal the chameleon climbed out of his tank and ran towards Rapunzel.

"Why is the ground shaking?" Jack asked nervously, clutching his shepherd's crook to his chest. "What is it?"

"A Whispering Death?" Hiccup suggested. "A Catastrophic Quaken?" These subterranean dragons were a common cause of ground vibrations in Berk.

But what emerged from the earth then was far more terrifying than any dragon.

With a loud, the floorboards split open, and a positively massive golden flower head tore its way upwards and shot through the ceiling between the three teenagers, twisting violently on a rapidly-growing green stalk, tangled and curved like the roots of a huge tree, and with a sticky white substance oozing from the green flesh. Rapunzel and Jack were thrown backwards by the sheer force of the flower emerging, and Hiccup was knocked over and fell under a table.

"Hiccup!" Rapunzel cried, and she and Jack ran straight towards the young prince, but before they could reach the table, another flower head erupted from beneath them, throwing them off their feet and onto the twisting stalk as the flower grew upwards through the ceiling.

"Jack! Rapunzel!" Hiccup screamed, running desperately forwards, only for yet another flower to grow _outside_ the house and slam into the doors, pushing them shut. Toothless gave an agitated roar and charged at the doors to try and force them open.

Outside the house, Jack and Rapunzel got to their feet, just in time to see the full extent of the chaotic giant flower growth outside their house. As more flower heads tore out of the earth, their twisting roots began to slowly lift the house clean off the ground, raising it into the air. Rapunzel compared the situation to a ship caught in the arms of the terrifying Kraken, except while the Kraken pulled its victims down into the sea, these massive flowers were lifting their victim high into the sky. And higher still, Rapunzel noted in horror.

"Jack, quick!" Rapunzel screamed. "Use the wind! Get us back up there!" Pascal the chameleon shivered from where he sat in her hair.

Jack grabbed his sister by the shoulders. "Wind, I beg your aid," he murmured, then jumped into the air.

Immediately, even amid the chaos of the storm around them, the wind created a cushion beneath Jack's feet, and blew him upwards, above the rising roots of the flower, and up onto the doorstep of the house.

Inside the house, Toothless was becoming increasingly edgy as more flowers began to twist inside the walls of the house, coming too close to him and Hiccup. Growling, the dragon opened his mouth, the inside of his throat glowing purple, before a pure indigo fire ball(the unique breath weapon of all Night Furies) shot out of his gullet and hit a flower stem, the part leaking sticky white latex.

As if in response, the stem exploded into a spraying mess of burning green plant lumps, spreading over the floorboards towards the prince and the dragon.

"No! That substance is flammable, Toothless. Stop shooting at it," Hiccup said, getting out from under the table to run over to his dragon.

A wooden shepherd's crook then protruded through the window, and cold wind rushed through the house and blew the fire out. Jack then used his staff to pry the flower away from the door so Rapunzel could get it open.

"Rapunzel!" Hiccup ran over to the door to help his friends get inside. As he pulled on Rapunzel's shoulder, he looked over it, and saw the distance separating them from the ground.

"Oh! Oh dear, this is bad! This is so bad! This is really, really bad!" Hiccup groaned, looking as though he was about to lose his balance.

"What's wrong?" Rapunzel asked.

Hiccup replied, "Would now be a terrible time to admit that when I'm not on a dragon, I seriously don't like heights?"

His tone was light, yet Rapunzel could sense the undercurrent of fear lying below it. While she strained upward, lifting herself while keeping her tight grip on Hiccup's arm, Jack started stabbing at more of the flower stalks with his staff. Toothless sprinted over to join him, tearing one flower's head clean off and snarling emphatically. For a few moments, Rapunzel felt safe.

But then, with a loud crack, an unexpected flower erupted through the floorboards below Rapunzel's feet. She tried to sidestep the rising plant, but, caught off-balance, fell backwards with a scream, pulling Hiccup's gauntlet away from his hand.

"No!" Jack dived down the trunk of the flower towards the ground, putting all his speed into catching up with his sister before she hit the ground. As soon as they were level, Jack gently pulled his sister into his grip, mentally struggling to slow the winds below them.

So it was with a soft thud that Jack fell to the foot of the gigantic flower, cushioning Rapunzel and Pascal with his own body. Winded but not wounded, Jack lay there for a few moments, as the rain fell around his head and the flower continued to extend into the sky. And the last words he heard before he fell into a sleep of chaotic exhaustion were Hiccup's scream of "RAPUUUUUUUUNZEEEEEEEELLLLLLL!" and an anguished Night Fury's roar.

Rapunzel's dreams were feverish and over-active. They involved standing on hard ground, feeling the earth vibrate below her feet. A gigantic figure, its form obscured by night apart from its glowing eyes, walked ominously towards her, lowering its head to her level, then spoke in a deep Viking accent, "You, girl. Wake up."

Rapunzel opened her eyes, just in time to see a monstrous face looking down on her; a bull-sized dragon, with a bright red head and three long curved horns, baring its teeth at her. Its body was bright green, with a wide neck coated in several flattened scaly pads, and its chin ended in a curving spike to match the horn on its nose, giving its head an axe shape.

For a mad moment, she thought it was the dragon who spoke to her, but then the dragon turned its head, revealing the bearded man sitting upon its back; the visage of King Stoick the Vast.

Suddenly aware of where she lay, Rapunzel quickly struggled to her feet, getting off Jack's body(she took care not to step on him) and brushed herself down while bowing deferentially to the King. Jack woke and got up a few minutes later, then looked around aimlessly before Rapunzel tugged him insistently onto one knee. On either side of King Stoick stood a further progression of men sitting on dragon-back. There was King Fergus and Queen Elinor of Dunbroch, Lord Dingwall(a short, flabby man whose face was permanently sanguine while his grey hair stood up in a puff from his head), Lord Macguffin(a big blonde man with eye-covering eyebrows and a braided moustache) and Lord Macintosh(a skinny black-haired man wearing red tartan and blue woad). Behind _them_ rode the entire Dragon Guard, with Princess Merida at their head.

"That gauntlet, it belongs to my son," King Stoick continued. "How did you get it?"

Rapunzel's eyes widened upon realizing she was still holding Hiccup's gauntlet from the night before. "I didn't steal it, Your Highness," she quickly stuttered. "He arrived at our house in the night riding his dragon. He needed shelter for the night, so we let him in. And then…" she turned behind her, only to see a gigantic twisting column of green extending out of the ground, leaves and roots protruding at awkward angles. Their house was nowhere in sight. " _That_ ….grew out of the ground."

Just then Princess Merida's eyes widened in recognition. "Ah recognize ye," she said. "Ye're that Saxon lass wha stood up for the Prince in the market yesterday. It's Rapunzel, aye?"

"And Jack," the white-haired boy added, as soon as he recovered himself from seeing the leader of the Dragon Guard in front of him.

"Father…" Merida said to King Fergus. "King Stoick… Ah saw these twa the mornin' Prince Hiccup escaped intae the citadel. Ruffnut had got drunk on duty and was comin' ontae him, sae they stood up tae her. Ah arrived shortly after."

"Oh, is that sae?" King Fergus asked. "In that case…" he got down off his dragon, a massive blue Thunderdrum with a gaping mouth to rival any anglerfish. "Ye can stop bowin' now, bairns. Up ye get."

Rapunzel got to her knees, Jack following her shortly.

"One question, Rapunzel," King Stoick said. "You told me my son and his dragon took refuge in your house for the night. Where is your house now?"

Rapunzel swallowed uncomfortably. "At the moment?" she turned and pointed towards the gigantic flower-stem, which led up into the clouds. "It's at the top of that flower."

The huge crowd of soldiers, noblemen and royalty followed Rapunzel's fingers as far up the twisting green column as their heads could move, their mouths widening in unison with their eyes. The only people Rapunzel could make out not looking at the flower were a woman with grey eyes and curly black hair and a skinny red-bearded man with untidy hair and bright green eyes. They seemed to be whispering to one another and pointing at her. Rapunzel frowned.

"By the Dagda's club," King Fergus removed the tiny helmet on top of his head, sinking with great difficulty onto his remaining knee in a reverent way. "Could it be…?"

King Stoick took a different attitude towards the gigantic plant. "Merida? I need you to get your fittest soldiers together, along with their best dragons. You are to climb up there, find my son and his dragon, and get them both back down."

"Aye, King," Merida replied, bowing her head. Rapunzel noticed a worried look in her eyes, as though she, too, cared for Hiccup as deeply as his father. Was that why she had looked so angry to see the Prince with Rapunzel yesterday? Rapunzel felt a brief stab of jealousy, though she didn't know where it came from.

"Your Highness," the black-haired woman, garbed in elegant burgundy robes, spoke: her accent was very similar to Rapunzel's own, so she was probably a Saxon, a full-blooded one, too. "With your permission, I wish to join the princess' Merida's search party."

Merida's glance sharpened as she turned to the Saxon woman. "Ah mean nae offence, Lady Gothel, but we will be headin' up a monstrous flower intae what may well be dangerous territory. Ah think this job may be better suited tae mah Dragon Guards tae handle."

"But I can help you, dearest Princess," Gothel insisted. "My skills at negotiation and diplomacy may well come in handy, and I'm not as delicate as you may think. Besides, this is an ideal opportunity to prove my devotion to my future husband. And, indeed, to my king," she added, with a graceful bow to King Stoick.

Stoick nodded distractedly. "By all means go with my soldiers, Gothel. But make sure to bring my son back."

Merida tried to mask her angry expression behind a courteous smile, but just as Rapunzel was about to address the king, Uncle Mildew appeared at the far end of the field, saw his niece and the unnatural monolith of a plant growing out of the ground where his house once was, and lost it all.

"RAPUNZEL! JACK!" he shrieked, in complete incoherent horror and fury. He attempted to run across to his young wards, only to find two young Vikings grabbing him by the arms and then forcing him down onto his knees.

"Don't come any closer, you stinkin' slime-bucket," one of the aforementioned Vikings growled. Rapunzel realized with a side-take that it was the same Viking girl she ran into in the market yesterday: Ruffnut, she'd heard Merida call her. So given Ruffnut's behaviour the last time they met- drunk to the point of lecherousness- it was surprising to see her now behaving more like a typical Dragon Guard. "King Stoick doesn't need rat-eaters like you in his presence."

King Stoick turned to face Rapunzel. "Do you or your brother know this man, Rapunzel?"

"Sadly, yes we do," Jack muttered darkly, before Rapunzel sharply elbowed him in the ribs.

"He's our uncle, Your Majesty," she said. "He's the one who owns this farm. He's the only other family we've got."

"Oh, what have ye done, lass?!" Uncle Mildew shrieked from where he was held down. But his ire was quickly drawn to a different, more trivial source. "Why are all these stinkin' dragons on me farm? Get 'em off! They're not fit to live in civilized society!"

The other young Viking restraining the cantankerous old Saxon, a brawny lad with large nostrils and black hair, removed one of his hands and sniffed it. "Judging by your stench, neither are you, you ugly old butt-elf," he remarked sardonically.

"What the- WHO DO YOU THINK YE ARE, TALKIN' T'ME LIKE THAT, YE DISRESPECTFUL LITTLE WHELP?!" Mildew screeched helplessly.

The big Viking lad tightened his grip on Mildew's arm. "I'll tell you who I am, you foul-smelling old shrimp. I'm Snotlout Jorgenson, third-in-command to Princess Merida of the Dragon Guard, rider of the strongest Monstrous Nightmare in all of Berk, and cousin to the Crown Prince Hiccup! So I'm asking you now, who are _you_ , trying to insult _me_ , which only my cousin can do?"

Mildew, his skinny arm feeling clamped dangerously tight, was too intimidated to respond.

"No answer, hmmm? I didn't expect one from you." Snotlout looked over at Rapunzel in a surprisingly sympathetic way, as if he felt sorry for her and Jack having to live with a unpleasant coward of an uncle like Mildew.

Stoick seemed to share that expression, if anything.

This sympathetic gaze was what emboldened Rapunzel to speak up. "King Stoick… Me and my brother would like to join your soldiers on this expedition to bring back your son."

Merida let out a startlingly exasperated growl. "Oh, greet! We have tae accept the wee lamb an' her brother noo? Why no' jus' send a bunch of auld maids up the flamin' floower as well?"

"Please, King Stoick," Rapunzel pleaded, still unsure of what Merida's problem was with her. "My brother and I, we may just be a farmer's children, but we know how to climb and we've endured the worst of the weather here. Let us help you."

At this point, Lady Gothel spoke aloud. "They make a good point, King Stoick. I move that these two come with us. They must have seen this monster of a flower take root in the night. Perhaps they can help us find out why… or, indeed, where this flower leads to."

She fixed her eyes on Rapunzel for a few seconds, and Rapunzel wondered if Gothel had her own personal reasons for wanting them to come with the Dragon Guard.

"We cannae jus' accept the help of any random person we meet!" Merida protested heatedly. "Yer Majesty, please listen tae reason…"

"No, Merida," King Stoick replied, getting down off his dragon and straightening to his full formidable height. " _You_ listen to reason. Gothel has a point, perhaps these two youngsters' knowledge can help us. Besides, from what you yourself have just told me, they helped protect my son's honour in the market yesterday. You shouldn't let your pride blind you to your allies."

He fixed the Scottish princess with a reproving glare reflected by Merida's own parents. With a reluctant sigh, Merida jumped down off her dragon and walked over to Rapunzel.

"Ye get yer wish, Rapunzel," she said briskly and strictly. "Ye an' yer brother can come with us, but that means the twa of ye have tae obey _me_. If ah tell ye tae run, ye run. If ah tell ye tae fight, ye fight. And if ah tell ye tae kill someone…ye will kill them. Nae questions asked. Are we guid?"

Rapunzel nodded, trying to avoid Merida's piercing eyes.

"Guid," Merida replied, her expression lightening somewhat. She then turned to the two Viking youths on either side of Mildew. "Snotlout, Ruffnut. Ye will be our new allies' escort up the greet floower. Ye keep them safe at any cost. An' Ruffnut, consider this compensation fer yesterday's mishap."

Ruffnut nodded, her own expression as visibly cowed as Rapunzel's. The two young Vikings then walked over to the petite farm-girl.

King Stoick then raised his trusted axe above his head to call everyone's eyes to him. "Everyone, hear me! From this moment on, your mission is to climb up this giant flower, find my son and his dragon, and bring them both back down safely. You will secure yourselves to each other with ropes, and you will be followed by a team of dragons, so that, should any of you fall, they will catch you. Now go forth, climb up this giant flower, and by the strength of the gods may you return bringing my son back to me."

He bowed his head, the Dragon Guard bowed their heads, and then Princess Merida lifted her bow onto her shoulder.

"Ye heard yer king," she growled, tossing her crimson hair out of her face. "Dragon Guard! Prepare tae move oot!"

"GRUH! GRUH!" the soldiers shouted in response, hammering their breastplates twice in honour of both their commander and their king. Rapunzel and Jack reflected this salute in their minds, then set about busying themselves with the climbing ropes.

To the side, Lady Gothel and Dagur the Deranged spoke quietly to one another.

"You remember that thieving druid, Lady Gothel?" Dagur whispered shiftily. "After she made off with the seeds yesterday, she didn't have them by the time I caught her. And now, one of these flowers has grown under the house of these farm-children. I reckon they got it from the old hag."

"Indeed, Dagur," Gothel replied. "And where there is one flower, they must have the rest of them."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Dagur hissed. "Let's kill the pests and steal the rest of the seeds now!"

Gothel placed a restraining hand on Dagur. "Patience, Dagur. We will get the seeds _and_ take the throne, but not yet. We go up there with the rest of the soldiers, but we play it slow. All good things come to those who wait."

 **There you go! Here is yet another new chapter to Rapunzel! Sorry about the delay. Next chapter, the journey to the land of the Fomorians begins!**

 **Stay tuned!**

 **Sammael29**


	5. Author's Note

A/N

 **Hey everyone.**

 **In case you're wondering why I haven't updated recently, my family are preparing to move to a new house in Wales, and all the hectic packing hasn't left me that much time to think of new scenarios for my stories. Re-establishing the internet may take at the most two weeks, but by the time I get it back, I will return to writing for Rapunzel with zeal. I hope you're not too upset by this.**

 **Speak to you within two weeks at the latest,**

 **Sammael29**


	6. Chapter 6

Rapunzel Chapter Five

Into the clouds

 **Hello people! My family have now settled in Wales, and this gives me the motivation to start writing Rapunzel yet again. I'm sorry about the massive delay, but I was suffering from a massive case of writer's block, and I was too caught up in discovering cool new websites, exploring my new home turf, and getting ready for Christmas. Here is a new chapter, in which Rapunzel gets the chance to slowly connect to the rest of the Dragon Guard. Enjoy!**

They had been climbing for what felt like hours now. Rapunzel and Jack had only their natural stamina and athleticism(and the healing, refreshing effect of Rapunzel's hair) to continue this tortuous climb. Rapunzel had always thought of flowers as gentle, beautiful, sweet-smelling plants, but this floral giant challenged all those stereotypes. The stem was more like a tree-trunk than anything, leathery and rough, and sparsely pock-marked in oozing white sores releasing the same disgusting latex that Toothless had breathed fire on the night before. The stench was of all the worst traits of the sea- blood spilled by sharks, rancid fish-oil, blubber poured on a hot rock. It was good that Rapunzel had decided to change her purple dress for a bodice, shirt, waistcoat and trousers(her father had always believed that Rapunzel should wear practical clothing as well as nice clothing. She didn't feel as disgusted getting flower oil on her climbing clothes as on her petticoat.

Merida, at the head of the climbing procession, paid it little heed, pulling herself up with the strength of a forest carnivore that chases its prey up into the tallest tree. Rapunzel tried to make small talk as she hastened after the impatient Scot.

"Uh, Princess Merida?" Rapunzel called. On her shoulder Pascal sat, warming himself on her braided hair. "You've fought in foreign territory before. What do you suppose lies ahead up there?"

Merida gave a surprisingly unladylike snort of derision, stopping mid-climb to look back to Rapunzel.

"Supposin' is somethin' tha' fussy auld maids who scream at their ane shadows dae, lass," she said. "Ah am a princess. Ah am a soldier. One day ah will be a queen. An' a queen doesnae suppose aught. They prepare fer anythin'."

"Including Fomorians?" Jack drawled, gaining pace with his sister.

Merida paused to frown at him. "Ye ken an awful lot aboot Fomorians, laddie. Ah thought ye were both Saxons?"

"We're _half_ -Saxons, Your Highness," Jack replied snarkily. "Our mother was an Irish Celt. We grew up on tales of the Fomorians. We know just as much about them as you or any other Scot."

Merida raised an eyebrow. "Impressive, laddie. Well, in answer to yer question, lass, ah have fought men afore, an' dragons, _an_ ' giants. Giants dinnae frighten me. But ah have never fought Fomorians. Fomorians were worse than giants tae those who fought them…they were _monster_ s. Few who met them lived tae tell of it. "

The princess climbed ahead, renewed ferocity in her motion. Rapunzel, somewhat perturbed, found herself drawing alongside the same Viking girl she'd got slapped by in the tent yesterday.

"Hey," the blonde girl called awkwardly. She wore a tan fur vest, fingerless arm wraps and a brown shirt and dark blue trousers. She was, in addition red in the cheeks and trying not to lock eyes with Rapunzel.

"Hey," Rapunzel reflected that awkwardness.

"We were never properly introduced, back down there, you know," the Viking girl continued. "I'm Ruffnut. Ruffnut Thorston."

"Rapunzel," the farm-girl replied. "Can I ask, why are you called Ruffnut?"

After gaining pace, the Viking girl pointed out a protruding ledge- or rather, a leaf, wide enough and solid enough to support both their weights- and they moved onto the ledge. There, Ruffnut removed her helmet, placed Rapunzel's hand on her head, then rubbed it up and down sharply.

Rapunzel withdrew her hand, rubbing it. "Your head…is seriously abrasive," she murmured.

"Yes! That's why I'm called Ruffnut!" her new acquaintance replied cheerfully. "My twin brother? He's a Tuffnut. We've rubbed fists and shields in each other's heads since childhood, and not so much as a scar."

"And what about your brother?" Rapunzel asked. "Where is he?"

"Well, he tried to join the Dragon Guard, just like me," Ruffnut replied. "But father wouldn't let him. Said the Dragon Guard already had one strutting bull in its ranks, and he's the prince's cousin."

"Is someone talking about me?" Into sight climbed the figure of Snotlout Jorgenson. He wore a vest of black fur, over a grey-green shirt with an open V-neck, brown trousers, and rich red greaves adorned with metal studs.

"Oh, hello, Snotlout," Ruffnut groused. "Rapunzel, this is Snotlout, Prince Hiccup's cousin. The best axe-swinger, the best hammer-thrower, and the biggest boaster in all of Berk."

"Hey, Ruffnut," Snotlout chuckled, raising his eyebrows and smoothing his unkempt hair back. "Have I told you how stunning you look today? Because you do." He kissed his finger tips and waved them towards her head.

Ruffnut's eyes narrowed in disgust. "Do you ever take a bath?"

They had been climbing for some hours now, Ruffnut and Rapunzel feeling considerably closer both in sharing more of their life details with each other, and in trying to get away from the unwelcome advances of Snotlout. Jack made sure to be at a level height to his sister and her new friend. As they continued climbing, Rapunzel's foot briefly slipped and she narrowly managed to grab onto the flower stalk and hold herself in place.

"You're not scared of heights, are you?" Ruffnut asked, placing a comforting hand on Rapunzel's shoulder.

Rapunzel laughed dryly. "The height doesn't trouble me, Ruffnut," she said. "What I'm scared of is falling off."

"Well, there's an easy solution tae that, lass," Princess Merida drawled from above her. "Dinnae let yerself fall aff. Ah've climbed the Crone's Tooth enough times tae learn that lesson."

Jack gritted his teeth. "That'll help her a lot, _Princess._ "

Ruffnut gently pushed up alongside Rapunzel and Jack. "You shouldn't let the Princess get to you, Rapunzel. She's not this…aggravating most of the time. If anything… I think she's jealous."

"Jealous?"

"Yes. King Stoick accepted the Dunbroch royal family into his home while the Princess was only a little girl. She and Prince Hiccup practically grew up together, and recently… I think she's begun viewing him as something other than a friend."

This news made Rapunzel feel uneasy. "And… does Prince Hiccup feel the same way?"

Snotlout answered that question with a scoff. "Hiccup? He's never seen Merida as anything more than his almost-sister. I don't think he'd even know if a girl showed interest in him."

"I think the same could be said about someone else I'm not going to mention," Ruffnut sneered, noting with pride that Snotlout didn't register what she'd said as an insult.

Rapunzel, meanwhile, pushed ahead, until she found herself standing on a solid leaf. Princess Merida was already waiting for her, overlooking another flower stalk growing out of the measureless sea of clouds a metre away from the one they were currently standing on.

"Before we go any further, lass," Merida asked, "ah have a question for ye. Are ye doin' this just tae make Prince Hiccup proud of ye?"

Rapunzel felt seriously uneasy talking about Hiccup in front of Merida. So she said "No, your Highness."

Merida chuckled softly, her expression easing as she placed a hand on Rapunzel's shoulder. "Dinnae call me Highness, lass. Ah may be a princess, but ah'm no' a queen yet. Call me Merida, like everyone else does."

"No, Merida," Rapunzel replied, feeling a lot less shy now that Merida had shown a more open side to her. "I'm doing this because I want to protect my people, just like you."

"Good," Merida replied. Over her shoulder she hoisted a crossbow, far longer and more roughly-carved than her own longbow. With a quick _fwusht_ , she pulled a lever, releasing a long harpoon over the great bed of clouds and into the stalk on the other side; as soon as it went through, three metal hooks opened from the bard and lodged in the flower's green flesh, securing the two gigantic plants by a length of rope.

"Ah cannae blame ye fed no' wantin' the Prince tae marry Lady Gothel, ye ken," Merida added. "Ah wish every day he could escape tha' marriage an' change his fate. Ah didnae want tae get married mahself, a lang time ago. The sons o' the three lords o' me father's land came tae compete fed me hand on me sixteenth birthday. Ah decided tae shoot fer me own hand, rather than let me mother control every part o' me life. But Lady Gothel is no' some puffed-up Celtic noble. She's a woman o' judicial power in Stoick's court. It wouldnae be wise tae reject her friendship. Besides, even if Hiccup could find a way tae avoid marryin' her, the laws o' Berk strictly forbid him frae marryin' people o' common birth."

This said, Merida unfastened her belt, before swinging one end over the lifeline to provide a handrail. With a short kick, she pushed herself off, sliding across over the clouds until her feet came down on the other side.

Now it was Rapunzel's turn to follow her across. Since she didn't have a belt, Rapunzel unbraided her hair, then swung it over both sides of the rope, grasping on with both hands. She stood, facing the bridge of clouds.

Merida looked worried. "Are ye sure that'll hold ye, lass?"

Rapunzel wanted to say yes, but although she'd had plenty of time to perfect the art of swinging herself between trees with her hair, those trees weren't terrifying giants that rose above the clouds like this flower. Ruffnut clearly sensed her worry, for the Viking girl walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It's perfectly safe, Rapunzel," she said softly. "If you fall off, one of the dragons will catch you. You know how I deal with things like this?"

Rapunzel shook her head.

"I imagine a big, juicy boar roasting at the other end of the rope… or a big, handsome man. I just think of something rewarding, something precious to me, waiting at the other end. If I can imagine that precious thing right in front of me, I can do anything. Can you see anything precious waiting your end?"

Rapunzel narrowed her eyes, focusing hard enough to the point that she could imagine Prince Hiccup waiting at the other side- with his kind, awkward smile, his friendly green eyes, and leaning down towards her, as though about to…

"Yes, I can see it," she replied, surprised by how determined her voice sounded.

Ruffnut got very close behind her. "Well, then… go and get it!" she cried, and with a good shove, she pushed Rapunzel off the lip of the leaf platform, and out onto the rope.

Rapunzel found herself sliding forwards chaotically fast, her hair alone holding above a deadly sea of thin air. She screamed, initially from terror, but then from sheer delight out of the intense joy of it all, and she swept about with her legs as she flew to the end of the rope and felt herself slam into something warm and soft.

Minutes later, she found herself getting back to her feet and scrambling off a winded and indignant Merida. The Scots princess' face turned the same shade as her hair as she regained composure from having a five foot six blond girl fly in her face. Well, she'd been through worse. Ruffnut followed her shortly afterwards.

On the other side, Snotlout and Jack were next across. The boisterous Viking unfastened his own arm wraps, rather than face the indignity of letting his trousers fall around his shins, and slung them over the rope.

"Watch and be awed, my friends!" he called aloud. "I, Snotlout Jorgenson, will cross this expanse of chilly air and secure myself to the great flower, with my face!" he grinned with annoying over-confidence, then shot off down the rope. Halfway across, he wobbled a bit, then somehow his handholds slipped uncomfortably high up on one side of the rope, leaving him unevenly balanced by his hands.

"Snotlout!" Merida cried. Immediately, Jack jumped off the leaf, not bothering to grab the rope, and a gust of wind caught him immediately and threw him across, right into Snotlout's waist. A moment later, Snotlout let go of his arm wraps and fell out of sight with a scream, Jack still clinging to his waist.

"Jack!" Rapunzel screamed. She scrambled a short length down the side of the flower, only to find her brother squatting on a leaf wide enough to support both his weight and Snotlout's while the big Viking teen lay unconscious in his arms.

"Rapunzel," Merida called gently. Rapunzel noticed with some surprise that this was the first time since they'd begun the ascent into the clouds that Merida had spoken her name. "Rapunzel, up ye come, lass. Bring yer brother an' Snotlout."

Rapunzel struggled back up. Jack slowly climbed after her, calling the wind to lift Snotlout behind him. As he rose up in the air, the Viking's eyes opened and he stared in a dazed way at Jack.

"Please tell me I'm not dead and you're not a Valkyrie," he groaned, apparently annoyed he wasn't being held up by the gorgeous Ruffnut.

"Ye're no' deid right noo, Snotlout, ye big ijit," Merida snapped. "But ah fear ye will be should ye continue these flamin' high-air stunts." She then turned as Jack climbed up to rejoin the group, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him. "An' you! Dinnae risk yer life like tha' agin, d'ye hear me?"

Jack laughed dryly. "So you do care about us, princess," he teased.

Merida glared at him. "Oh, shut up, ye lanky snow pony," she snorted.

Some hours later, the climbing group ran into greater trouble. Although the weather had been fairly unremarkable, as evening set in, a monstrous thunderstorm broke out, as though Thor himself was riding out across the sky, sending down his fury to stab the earth.

Pascal huddled into Rapunzel's hair to shield himself from the rain. Although the little chameleon was used to water, he preferred the calmer water of the little lake close by Rapunzel's farm. These feelings were shared by Rapunzel herself, who ducked her head away from the rain, as though each drop that felt was an arrow directed at her cheeks.

Jack and Merida climbed close together. The white-haired magic boy desperately reached out with his mind into the wind, trying to calm its rage, but he could only stop the violent gusts from blowing the climbing team off the flower's walls and into the air. He could not shield his friends and family from the rain, other than freeze it into hail and snow.

And neither could he stop the next barrage of thunder that slammed into the beanstalk, accompanied by a terrible jagged spear of lightning that cut through the lifeline holding up several of the Dragon Guard, including Snotlout and Ruffnut.

With a chorus of screams, the group hung for a few minutes in mid-air before their supporting rope fell slowly backwards, hanging precariously above the clouds.

"AAAGHHH!" came a scream from Ruffnut as the girl slid backwards, now in danger of relinquishing her only grip to secure herself to the flower stalk.

Rapunzel slowly descended the stalk, moving towards her friend as she hung in mid-air. The rope wasn't long enough for Rapunzel to reach Ruffnut with her hands- but she could still reach her some other way.

Over one shoulder, Rapunzel swung her hair. She let her almost pythonic tresses slide within reach of Ruffnut's hair.

"RUFFNUT!" she had to shout to make herself heard above the raging tumult. Rapunzel swore for a moment that at the heart of the raging wind, she could hear a deafening roar, like a wounded, raging animal. But it must have been the terror and adrenaline playing on her fears. "GRAB MY HAIR! I'LL PULL YOU UP!"

"ARE YOU CRAZY!" Ruffnut screamed back, her voice shrill in terror. "I CAN'T DO THIS!"

"YES YOU CAN, RUFFNUT!" Rapunzel called. "JUST IMAGINE A PRECIOUS REWARD, AND REACH OUT!"

With those words, Ruffnut shoved all her fears and doubts to the back of her mind. She chose to focus on one specific image: Eret, a new recruit for the Dragon Guard, a handsome Celtic lad(and Welsh, to boot), at one point a dragon trapper before he realised he like befriending dragons more than capturing them; deep brown eyes, long dark hair, muscles(oh, such sweet muscles), standing on the deck of a ship, with her in the water, clinging to the anchor chain. Drawn deep into her imagination, Ruffnut lunged up the chain, desperate to reach Eret's handsome face. She was that deeply drawn in, it wasn't until Rapunzel placed a hand on her collar that she saw where they were.

She was standing on a sturdy leaf, directly facing Rapunzel. Her hands were wound up in Rapunzel's hair, and they were so close Ruffnut could count every freckle on Rapunzel's cheeks. And Ruffnut's lips were pursed and puckered and seriously close to Rapunzel's own.

Ruffnut felt as though she had Fireworms dancing across her cheeks. She quickly moved a few steps backwards, trying not to meet Rapunzel's eyes.

"Oh, heh…You saved my life! Thanks!" She said that too quickly, didn't she?

"No problem!" Rapunzel squeaked. Then, she quickly realised… "You were imagining that reward, weren't you?"

Ruffnut nodded weakly. She felt horrifically awkward. The first time she met Rapunzel, she slapped her in the face. Now she'd almost kissed her. How crazy.

Up ahead, Lady Gothel, her fur robes exchanged for leather climbing armour, turned towards Dagur as the three remaining Dragon Guards- Snotlout, Fishben(or Fishlegs) Ingerman, and Young Macintosh, one of the sons of the three lords- hung helplessly in mid-air.

"DAGUR!" She shouted. "I'M HELPING THEM UP! STAY HERE!" And she moved down the flower stalk with surprising nimbleness. Dagur kept his grip, a look of strange excitement filling his green eyes as the storm raged.

Snotlout and Fishlegs clung tightly to the rope. The latter, a pudgy blonde boy who gained a surprisingly high place in the Dragon Guard although he had a massive fear of battle, was trying to mask his terror under daring sarcasm.

"COULD THIS GET ANY WORSE?" Snotlout wailed as he hung in mid-air like a spider.

"I DON'T KNOW, SNOTLOUT, _LET'S SEE!_ " Fishlegs shouted back at him. " _WE'RE HUNDREDS OF FEET OFF THE GROUND CLIMBING A GIGANTIC FLOWER, YOUR COUSIN THE PRINCE AND HIS DRAGON ARE PRESUMABLY STUCK AT THE TOP OF THIS FLOWER, AND IN A FEW MOMENTS WE'LL EITHER FALL OFF OR GET HIT BY LIGHTNING!_ "

He looked up to see Gothel sidling down the trunk towards them. With her free hand, she held a seriously long dagger.

" _OR WE'LL GET STABBED!_ " Fishlegs cried in panic.

Gothel slid down even further towards them, dagger raised… and a few inches short of Fishlegs' head, she drove the dagger clean through the rope holding him up, pinning it to the stem of the flower.

"GET UP!" Gothel shouted, tugging on Fishlegs' shoulder to encourage him up the rope. The fat Viking hauled himself after her, while Young Macintosh strained his woad-tattooed arms pushing Snotlout ahead of himself. As soon as the burly Viking was far enough away from the slender Scot, Young Macintosh flipped his long brunette hair out of his face and started to climb after his friends.

Before he could reach them, a bolt of lightning shot out of the clouds and cut through his rope.

It was so sudden, no-one had any time to react, apart from a sharp shriek from Gothel. For a few moments, Young Macintosh hung there, his blue eyes wide and uncomprehending, and then he dropped, his arms outstretched, and his scream high and echoing on the wind. He vanished into a seething ocean of clouds.

Gothel sunk back against the flower's stem, her voice raw with despair and accompanied by feeble cries. Princess Merida's eyes raced down the flower stem to where her subordinates clung.

"LADY GOTHEL!" Merida called. "WHAT'S GOIN' ON DOON THERE?"

"LIGHTNING SNAPPED THE ROPE!" Gothel yelled back, choked with emotion. "YOUNG MACINTOSH FELL…WE'VE LOST A MAN!"

Merida made no reply over the roar of thunder. She didn't need to. As Jack glanced over, he saw her otherwise stoic face tremble slightly, and tears intermingled with the rain running down her cheeks.

Rapunzel was numb with shock. She hadn't know Young Macintosh for very long, but to fall from such a height at the hands of lightning… that was a fate the kind-hearted farm girl would never wish upon anyone. Ruffnut fell forwards into her arms, sobbing openly and wrenching at Rapunzel's heartstrings. Rapunzel just stood, and let the Viking girl pour her heart out, while Pascal nuzzled into her shoulder.

Jack himself was not seeking comfort nor giving any. Instead, his eyes darted towards Dagur, who had stayed where he stood while his mistress descended to the young soldiers' aid. With his left hand, he held a rope securing him to the flower, with his free hand, he held something the lightning revealed to be a long metal chain that… didn't secure him to anything, really. At least, not anything visible, for that chain lead out into the air and into the clouds, a seemingly suicidal move, given all the lightning surrounding them.

Jack quickly realised that although the lightning was raging overhead, it was distant and white, in contrast to the bolts that cut through the rope, close and intense blue. This wasn't normal lightning, and somehow that chain connected Dagur to whatever had created it.

Jack was so long in noticing this, he didn't see Dagur glancing up and locking eyes on him. As Gothel, her face apparently still flushed with grief, climbed up alongside him, his eyes darkened.

"How did it go?" she asked quietly, her voice more intrigued now.

"Almost perfectly," Dagur replied, running his tongue between his teeth sadistically.

"Almost?"

"The white-haired boy, he saw my chain. He must know something. I'll split his guts open and tie them around his head. I'll…"

" _Patience_ , Dagur," Gothel hissed, placing a finger to his breast. "We've already killed one enemy. We'll kill the rest of them later."

Rapunzel thought she'd never be able to sleep after watching a man falling out of the sky, yet surprisingly, she soon found a warm leaf to curl up on and rest for the night. Her dreams were quiet and peaceful, filled with images of her and Hiccup running in a meadow, laughing, hands locked, and he turned to her, his face alight with a smile, and then he leaned towards her, lips pursed...

Rapunzel woke up to find herself only a hair's breadth away from a hefty black cormorant, leaning in towards her face, honking softly. Upon seeing how close his beak was to her lips, Rapunzel blushed and scrambled backwards. Now she felt just like Ruffnut, almost kissing the closest living thing in the grip of her dreams.

Her initial shame quickly turned to curiosity, heightened as Merida and Jack climbed up from behind her to look at the bird.

"Uh, why is there a cormorant here?" Rapunzel asked.

"Well, cormorants are birds, Rapunzel," Jack replied. "And birds can fly."

"But cormorants live by the sea, ye daft ijit," Merida growled. "There's no' any sea aroond here fer a sea bird tae live aff. Why is it here?"

As if in response, the cormorant took off from its perch and flew away into the dense wall of mist in front of the three. The mist slowly parted, revealing something massive and unbelievable.

Hovering in the thin air, a gigantic wall of guano-streaked stone lay, formidable cliffs running down its length, only to be cut short by the foot of the cliff, suspended above the clouds. On every level of the cliff, sea-birds of all descriptions nested and called. But what was most captivating about the wall was a massive carved face protruding from it; the face of a shark, roughly hewn, its jaws gaping, eyes glaring, and a torrent of water running out of its mouth between its teeth and falling down to the earth far below.

And the leaf they were standing on lead right into the hollow cavern that served as the mouth of the beast.

"Well, this seems ominous," Jack murmured.

Merida quickly took control of the situation. "Jack, Rapunzel, get behind me," she said. "We're goin' in there."

Slowly, they walked along the leaf(it held up really impressively under their weight), and walked tentatively inside the mouth of the shark. It was cold, and wet, and Rapunzel smelt salt in the air. Like she was walking by the edge of the sea. As they came out, Rapunzel found herself standing on ground coated in uneven piles of black slate, small rock pools interspersing them, and up ahead, rocks leading to a path of sand, sand leading to the edge of a forest of twenty feet fur trees that looked out of place in a landscape that largely seemed to resemble the edge of the sea.

The top of the massive flower grew up over the lip of the cliff. Rapunzel's house slumped on the ground, bending the head of the flower that stuck through its roof like a kebab stick. The house was still in one piece, but a few planks hung at awkward angles, and the thatching was completely in tatters. Clearly the growth of the flower had done a lot more damage than Rapunzel had at first thought.

Merida hurried over to the house, upon seeing the door hanging open. However, the house was completely unoccupied; Hiccup and Toothless were nowhere to be seen.

Merida looked seriously worried now. Rapunzel felt so too, until Pascal slid down out of her hair and dropped onto the ground. Where he dropped, Rapunzel made out a series of footprint impressions in water. A few were human, a few...weren't human, but they all lead in the same direction, inland, across the rock ground and into the forest.

"Well, they're no' here any more," Merida surmised. "An' if Hiccup decided tae fly back doon on Toothless, we'd ha' seen him."

"He hasn't gone down," Rapunzel said. "He's gone further inland."

"Why?" Ruffnut asked.

"Perhaps he was looking for warmth," Jack replied. "Perhaps he thought there were tasty animals in the forest that his dragon could shoot down for him."

"Or perhaps he was feeling adventurous," Rapunzel finished, her eyes widening.

All of a sudden, Lady Gothel climbed up out of the cave, Dagur following a short distance behind. The Saxon noblewoman, looking out of breath and place in her leather tunic and trousers as opposed to a rich red dress, lowered herself and gasped to recover herself, a little too energetically for Merida's liking. Merida frowned.

"Oot o' breath a'ready, Lady Gothel?"

Gothel tried to recompose herself. "I don't... like...cliffs, Princess Merida. Before I came to live on Berk... The day my village was destroyed... an Outcast raider brought me and the other girls to the cliff-face. He started throwing those too young to sell as slaves off the cliff... he asked me whether I wanted to join them, and he held me out over the sea, to watch them as they fell... I was only nine years old...I can still hear the screams..."

Merida looked apologetic and withdrew. Rapunzel felt sorry for Gothel, although she hadn't known the woman that long. Uncle Mildew may not have loved her and Jack, but at least he never tried to kill them. No-one should have to endure such horrors at such a precious age.

Fishlegs walked around dispensing provisions from his backpack for the group; bread, beef and cabbage, provided by the royal kitchens before the Dragon Guard set off. Gothel accepted a flask of water with a relieved sigh.

"It's a good thing you didn't go down with the provisions, young Ingerman," she said. "Bad enough that we lost Young Macintosh to the lightning. We don't need to lose our food too."

Jack frowned. Something seemed... off, about Lady Gothel's tone. While the night before she had seemed perfectly devastated at Young Macintosh's death, she now spoke about it lightly, as though she decided he wasn't worth her tears after all.

Gothel took a long drink of water before passing the canteen to Dagur, who drank with the thirst of a wolf returned from a long day's hunting. This done, he gasped a loud, hungry "Aaaah," and grinned almost manically.

Lady Gothel then glanced up to Rapunzel as the rest of the Guard regained their strength from their breakfast.

"Go on ahead, my Princess," she said to Merida. "I'd like to have a word with Rapunzel alone."

Jack's suspicious nature wouldn't let Gothel's implication slide, but he walked ahead with the rest of the group anyway, determined not to show he was onto her.

Rapunzel, far more open than her brother, walked over to the Saxon noblewoman's side. Gothel placed a hand on her shoulder, elegant and pink.

"You asked for me, my lady?" Rapunzel began.

"Yes, Rapunzel," Gothel replied. "I was hoping to get the chance to speak to you. I'd like to know the whereabouts of a certain assortment of seeds you have in your possession."

Something sharpened in her tone, and her hand tightened its grip on Rapunzel's shoulder. The farm girl looked up, beginning to feel more than a little afraid, and saw Gothel's steely stare directed at her.

"Let me tell you a few things about the royal court of King Stoick, my dear," Gothel continued, her voice still light and conversational. "Three people live in court who can legally order a person to be executed: the King's Advisor, the King's Steward, and the Royal Executioner. And, as it turns out, _I_ am the Advisor, _and_ the Steward, and Dagur here is the Executioner."

Rapunzel glanced over to see the Berserker in question bent over a rock pool, cheerfully stabbing his dagger in and out of the water, impaling shrimps and small fish on its blade, then wiping the blood and little pieces off on his knuckles. Pascal placed his little hands over his mouth and turned white with revulsion.

" _That_ man...is the Executioner?" Rapunzel whispered in panic. "He looks...insane!"

Gothel laughed apologetically. "Yes, he's a Berserker, I'm sorry to say. He's been working on it for years. A few blades short of an armory, but he's really good at what he does. But back to the topic of you, Rapunzel. I want to know where you're keeping those seeds."

Rapunzel frowned, now unconsciously sharing her brother's suspicion towards Gothel.

"Why do you think I've got the seeds?"

"Let's examine the facts, shall we? Two nights ago, the Crown Prince ran away from the castle and stopped at your farmhouse. Next morning, we arrive to find a gigantic flower growing from the ground where your house used to be, and the Prince and his dragon nowhere to be found. The flower in question matches the description of a kind only produced by the fabled seeds of the old stories. Have you got any more of those seeds, and where did you get them from?"

"I got them from an old woman in the market square," Rapunzel timidly replied. "She had a talking crow on her shoulder...she said she was a druid."

"And... do you know where that druid got those seeds from?" Gothel said, silkily. "She stole them from the royal family. Those seeds were given to them for safekeeping, so that no-one could ever misuse them again- and _you_ , my dear, not only aided a condemned robber, but you robbed King Stoick himself. If you rob from the King, you have committed treason."

"But I didn't mean to...! I didn't know...!"

"Oh, dearest, I know," Gothel continued. "How could a poor farm girl like you know of the nefarious deeds of druids? But the royal court will not see it like that. They won't know that you didn't mean to cause so much trouble. Look at where we stand now, Rapunzel. A land of sea and forests, located in the sky. Perhaps this is Magh Tuiredh, the jail of the Fomorians. As far as we're concerned, you could have chosen to create that giant flower, so that the Fomorians could come back to eat us all. _I_ don't believe that myself, and if, after we find the Prince and get out of here, you have to face the court, I could make sure that you get a fair trial. But Dagur... he's an impulsive, unstable boy. Even if we find you innocent, his thirst for blood would linger... and I would hate to find you, your uncle and your brother in the dungeons, cut to pieces like a calf in a slaughterhouse."

Pascal appeared dangerously close to vomiting out his morning meal of insects. Rapunzel was nothing short of terrified. Lady Gothel was a soft-spoken yet brutal manipulator. She was essentially both intimidating and extorting Rapunzel in order to make her give up the seeds. And the worst part was, she had a point. She'd been careless with the seeds two nights before, and she'd separated King Stoick from his son, his sweet, clever, endearing son. She couldn't let any more mistakes like that happen.

"So, will you give me the seeds?" Gothel asked. "And I promise, no-one else will misuse the power of these seeds while I hold them."

Rapunzel nodded slowly and uncertainly, then reached into the pocket of her leather coat to produce a handful of daffodil seeds. Pascal scampered down to her shoulder and tugged at her hand with his tongue, but to no avail. Rapunzel emptied three seeds into Gothel's outstretched palm.

Gothel quickly pocketed the seeds. "Thank you, Rapunzel," she added, disturbingly nonchalant as she walked off to catch up with the Dragon Guard. "And, for the record, let us never speak of this again. Or else.."

Dagur cackled creepily and leered at Rapunzel as he put his wet dagger away to jog off after his mistress.

Rapunzel immediately turned to Pascal, her eyes tight with worry. "What are we going to do, Pascal? I don't like either of them... and they've taken all the seeds from us!"

Pascal shook his scaly head, then opened his mouth to reveal his sticky powerful tongue. Stuck on the tip of it was one last seed, gleaming like a coin from the royal treasury. Pascal's tongue shot out of his mouth, pressing the seed between Rapunzel's fingers, and she pulled it away. As Pascal retracted his tongue and chirped cheerfully, Rapunzel wiped the spit off and held up the seed with a triumphant smirk. So long as one of the seeds was in her grasp, she wouldn't break her promise to Sister Cailleach. For when Rapunzel made a promise, she never broke one.

Back at the foot of the flower, King Stoick's mood contrasted Rapunzel's greatly. After he and the court had set up camp for the night, he had got up to greet the dawn, only to find a horrific sight before him.

Spread-eagled at the foot of the giant flower he found Young Macintosh. The rain had left the slender Scot's clothes sodden through, washed off his woad and left his normally curly hair plastered to his head. And his neck and spine were both snapped.

King Stoick, still wearing his shift and trousers, swept through the camp, rousing all the clansmen of Dunbroch, shouting fit to startle a whole sounder of boars. As soon as they were up and dressed, all the rulers hurried to the foot of the flower, feasting their eyes upon the broken frame of Young Macintosh.

All were moved to grief. King Stoick sunk to one knee and removed his crown. Queen Elinor wept openly upon her husband's shoulder, and Lord Dingwall and Lord Macguffin lowered their heads. But Lord Macintosh's response was the most severe. He gathered his son's body in his arms, raised his head to the sky and let out a deafening scream, until his voice broke and his eyes poured a waterfall down his cheeks.

By the time all tears were shed, all condolences spoken, King Stoick had donned his royal armor and prepared to determine the manner of Young Macintosh's fall.

"Lightning," the King concluded as he held up the frayed remains of the lifeline that led from Young Macintosh's waist to the foot of the flower, cut off from the head above his waist. "It cut through the rope. He fell from a great height. He couldn't have survived it."

"But... why did he fall?" Lord Macguffin asked. His blue eyes, normally hidden by his massive blonde eyebrows, were now flushed with tears. "They went up there wi' a whole team o' dragons. If any o' them fell, the dragons would hae caught them. So why didnae his? An' why is he the only one who fell?"

Queen Elinor walked back over to King Stoick and bent to examine the rope. On the surface, she made out small green pieces of plant matter, minty-green in contrast to the dark green of the giant flower stem, and white roots protruding in odd places. The stench coming from them made her think of a sulphuric acid lake.

"Dragon Root!" she hissed.

"Wha'?" Lord Dingwall asked, cleaning out his ear with one finger.

"Dragon Root!" Elinor continued. "Look, along the rope!"

They all encircled Elinor to inspect the rope.

"Dragon Root is a kind o' plant tha' makes dragons who eat it become aggressive," she continued. "It's used by people who exploit dragons fer money; Slavers, circus-owners. They force-feed it tae the dragons tae make them more keen tae fight. An' the stench it gives aff when cut up is enough tae repulse most dragons frae eatin' it. The only dragons immune tae it are Gronckles, an' Young Macintosh rode a Monstrous Nightmare. She must've smelt the Dragon Root an' been driven back by it afore she could save her master. An' look!"

She held up another piece of rope tied to Young Macintosh, also frayed short, but devoid of Dragon Root.

"That rope attached Young Macintosh tae the rest o' the Guard. Ah know because ah tied it meself, on Merida's instructions. An' the rope smeared in Dragon Root is the one at the back o' the line, leadin' tae the foot of the flower. The clean rope shows natural lightnin' damage, dealt at a random part along the rope, but the Root rope, it's broken at a precise point, as though the second blast was a controlled one, a blast created by a natural force trained tae limit its firepower intae a series o' shots."

"In other words, a dragon," King Stoick filled in. "A dragon trained to shoot lightning at the ropes on which the Dragon Root is rubbed."

"Exactly," Queen Elinor continued. "An' there's only one dragon in these parts that can breathe lightnin'..."

"A Skrill," Stoick finished, his green eyes widening in horror. The Skrill was one of the most terrifying dragons in all Berk. It was too ferocious to be trained, its power was drawn from the lightning, and it could kill a massive whale by shooting its breath weapon into the sea where the whale swam. The only person insane enough to train a Skrill must be someone brutal and dangerous.

"So, a Skrill sabotaged the ropes," Stoick murmured, running his fingers under his beard. "One question remains... what does this mean?"

It was Lord Macintosh who spoke now, his voice low with sadness and anger.

"It means, Yer Majesty," he growled. "That someone on the climbin' team has killed my son. That someone among them...is an enemy."

As the climbing team advanced through the forest, Rapunzel noticed how beautiful the landscape was, in contrast to the jagged rock pools back by the edge of the island. The ground was coated in rich green moss and grass, the trees were rich in birds and squirrels. In a few places, Rapunzel made out boars grazing in the glades.

Her curiosity became curtailed, though, as they reached the foot of a massive tree. Carved into the wood was a rough capital H, below it, a rougher, more crudely-carved capital T.

"Hiccup an' Toothless," Merida quickly realized. "They left a trail tae find their way back."

"Great brain, my cousin," Snotlout proudly said. Rapunzel silently nodded, then made out the trail of footprints continuing into the forest.

They ran ahead, and Rapunzel made out the sound of thudding footprints; from behind, a group of dragons, at least five strong, descended to the ground to walk between the trees; Merida's own dragon, the black and white Nadder; a chubby brown Gronckle; a bright red Monstrous Nightmare, and another one of vibrant orange; and a pure gold Typhoomerang. Rapunzel had never seen the dragons before today, mainly due to the fact that they were floating out of sight in the clouds most of the time, and she watched them in wide-mouthed awe.

Humans and dragons pressed on, following the footsteps until they reached another tree marked with the initials H and T. Then, a few yards ahead, another, then another, and so on, until they finally reached the foot of a tree on which Hiccup had clearly stopped to write, only to find the H was only half-complete; the rest of the tree was untarnished.

And Rapunzel looked around to discover the reason why.

A few feet away from them, a massive oak lay smashed to the ground, half the trunk crushed inwards as though by a gigantic hand. The vegetation at its base fared no better, trampled and torn, and only a few inches away from the tree, a massive impression as wide as a reclining elephant filled the ground. The impression was a footprint, mainly human, but unnaturally gigantic, and its toes ended in sharp claws. It was a gigantic footprint neither fully man nor fully beast.

"By the Dagda's club," Merida whispered in horrified awe. "It cannae be."

Snotlout walked over to examine the footprint. "Alright, Fishlegs, break it down for us," he asked the chubby blond Viking. "What are we dealing with here? A troll? An ogre?"

Fishlegs scooped a small handful of soil from the footprint and sniffed it. "Gigantic human-shaped being, approximately 20 feet tall, massive claws, dangerously strong," he murmured quickly. He took a deeper sniff and added, "It lives in a place full of saltwater."

"What?" Jack and Rapunzel were incredulous.

"Where did you get the saltwater from?" Snotlout asked.

Fishlegs wiped his hands, then pointed out a small trail of water leaking from the edges of the footprint. "It's got wet feet."

Rapunzel made out a small object at the foot of the tree and picked it up. "It's my book," she said. "I gave it to Prince Hiccup the night he arrived at my house."

Merida's eyes widened, then quickly hardened as she regained composure and turned to Jack. "White-haired lad, take Lady Gothel an' Dagur an' go aroond tae find a higher vantage point. If ye see anythin' dangerous, dinnae attack it unless ye havenae got a choice. Fishlegs, Snotlout, take he dragons ahead tae scout oot the terrain. Rapunzel, Ruffnut, ye're comin' wi' me. We need tae find Prince Hiccup, an' his dragon, an' get them both back as soon as we can. From this moment on, they- an' us- are in serious danger."

"Why?" Rapunzel asked, though she felt sure she already knew the answer.

Merida placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yer mother's stories were true, Rapunzel. We Celts faced a deadly enemy centuries ago. Noo that enemy still lives here. This land is Magh Tuiredh. We're in the land o' the Fomorians. An' Prince Hiccup has been captured by one."

TA-DA! After four months' inertia, I finally found the strength to push myself back out of the Writer's Block Ruins and return to Fanfiction. I hope you like the new chapter. If any of you are wondering why Gothel only killed Young Macintosh instead of Snotlout and Fishlegs, it's because when I watched the original Jack the Giant Slayer I couldn't help but feel that Lord Roderick was coming across as a very stupid villain, given the way he was being very unsubtly evil, and killing all those Guardians meant he robbed the group of their-and his- food supply when he didn't need to. His Big Four counterpart here, Lady Gothel, is more of a pragmatic, thoughtful villain. She only killed Young Macintosh because he's close to Merida, and Gothel and Merida don't entirely trust each other, but she spared Lout and Legs because it wasn't in her best interests to kill Hiccup's cousin and the smartest Viking in the Dragon Guard. Also, in contrast to Roderick, who just flat out threatened Jack into giving him the seeds, Gothel tries a more persuasive and manipulative technique befitting her canon counterpart: by giving Rapunzel a valid reason to give her the seeds, she's showing that she's both a manipulative jerk and very persuasive. Also, I gave Queen Elinor a chance to shine in her deductive reasoning, to show that she can do a lot more than hold the kingdom of Dunbroch together.

Ah, Ruffnut and Rapunzel are growing closer, aren't they? The reason I made Rapunzel friends with Ruffnut first is because she and Merida are eventually going to become friends, but for now Merida has a small mountain of pride and jealousy to overcome beforehand.

Hope you like the story. Please review if you like it, and see you in the next chapter!

Sammael29


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